UCL MSc Finance 面经 [2021.04.04]

BG:211 本，CMU 工程硕，有两年工作经验，两段金融相关实习。跨专业转申的金融硕。

面试形式为 video interview，一共有六道题，其中前五题有题目，最后一道题畅所欲言。第 1-4 题 20s 准备，2 分钟回答。第 5 道题略长，30s 准备，2 分钟 30 秒回答。

Year 2021

What do you know about MSc Finance at UCL? / Why do you want to study finance at UCL? 你为什么要申请 MSc Finance 项目？（两小问，可答 2:30 或 2:00）
Well, personally, I’ve long been interested in wealth management and investment, in fact, I’m following the US stock market everyday, learning about trading strategy and investment knowledge by managing my own portfolio. During past two years, I’ve studied many investment strategies, and my portfolio has given a rate of return of over 350%. In the future I hope to manage a large amount of assets for clients and create more wealth for the society. But I’m also clear that I must be rigorously and systematically trained to join this industry.
That’s why I started to seek opportunities to study in a widely recognized business school. It’s pretty natural to think about UCL. UCL has near 200 years of glory history, also one of the best of universities around the world. I know UCL School of Management has a long history of training financial professionals, with a lot of valuable opportunities, well-designed curriculum and outstanding alumni. I believe all these advantages will prepare me for the future career success.
Besides, it’s very important that UCL is located in London. I’ve long been interested in London, which used to the heart of English-speaking world. With five world famous universities, the British Museum and the Barker Street 221 in the city, London always attracts me a lot for a visit.
A module you are interested in?
There are more than 1 module that I’m interested in, but I will choose Hedge Fund Strategies if I have to select only one. The reason why I changed my career path and entered the world of finance is the aspiration to be an investment manager. I enjoy the feeling of playing in the market, but I also realize that I need to be rigorously and systematically trained before I really have a chance to be admitted as an investment manager. To be prepared for the future investment practice, I’ve already establish my own portfolio, so it’s a natural result to learn more investment knowledge and skills. Obviously, successful hedge funds have provided diverse investment strategies to learn, most of which are tested and trusted by the market. Therefore, the module Hedge Fund Strategies is appealing to me. Apart from that, Fintech and Big Data Analytics draw my attention, too. I believe one of the biggest challenge, or maybe the biggest chance for the future finance industry, is the Fintech.
The finance industry nowadays relies too much on human repeated work due to the lack of information technology personnel. Finance industry is not automatic and smart enough compared to internet, engineering, medicine or many other industries. So I want to understand more about the Fintech and Big Data, maybe one day I can use those principles to improve the efficiency of my work. If I have the chance to create my own fund, maybe there is the opportunity to improve the efficiency of entire industry.
在本科阶段学了什么统计、计量、数学课，体验如何? (satisfied/challenging/ difficult 之类)
Calculus. Calculus is one of my favorite advanced mathematics subjects. Actually, I used to be a science major student in high school, so I had learnt a lot of fundamentals of calculus before I went to the college. Calculus at the university level was rather challenging though I had the foundation, on the other hand, I enjoy deeply looking into the basic principles and use them to solve complex problems. In brief, calculus is very challenging and appealing at the same time.
Linear Algebra is another important course. I did a good job on this course. Partly because I got an excellent teacher, who once did research for eight years in Tsinghua University, the strongest of mathematics department among all of Chinese universities. Linear Algebra can be extremely abstract for beginners, but thanks to the instruction of my professor, I understand well about the topic, and did pretty well in the test.
Probability Theory and Statistics also impressed me a lot. It’s a course that influences my view point about the world. Most of people tend to draw conclusions based on limited events, and judge a strategy based on the success of last event. Probability tells us how to look at events at a higher level. I cost much time on the course, finally I got the GPA 3.7 out of 4.0, I’m pretty satisfied with the result.
5 年后你会干什么？/ Where do you see yourself in five years?/ What is your dream job?(结合上题)
Personally, I’m always interested in investment activities, so I hope to be a buy side analyst in 5 years. First I’ll use one year to complete my master program. Upon graduation, I expect to be an equity analyst in an investment bank or a fundamental analyst in a wealth management firm. Of course, I know it can be very hard to get a job in a top buy-side firm like mutual funds or hedge funds. So my plan is to try my best to join a sell-side firm like an investment bank, starting from a research associate, and then seek opportunities to manage portfolio.
And I don’t think it’s a mission impossible to join a buy side fund upon graduation. I think the key is to take as many as interns and get more experience. Actually, I’ve already taken two interns in top securities companies in China, serving as associate equity analyst, doing research, writing reports and making advice for clients. In brief, I plan to join a top sell-side firm first, like J.P. Morgan or Barclays (替代 Top 5 Securities Companies or mutual funds). But in case that those top firms wouldn’t give me offers, for back up, I’ll also pay attention to middle investment banks. Then, after accumulating enough experience, I’m going to seek opportunities in an asset management company, I hope I can achieve that in 5 years.
你最好或者最强的 quality 是什么？（什么样的 quality 让你独一无二？）
a. The most important quality I have is the objective and logical thinking. I’m used to observing and thinking logically based on facts, I always believe if you want to draw the right conclusion, the first thing you need to do is to collect enough information and evidence, and don’t be emotional and radical. Due to that quality, I’m good at analyzing and manipulating numbers. My engineering training tells me how to identify and solve problems hidden behind facts and numbers.
b. The second quality is that I’m idealistic and down-to-earth simultaneously. I always have many ideas about my life, but I’m not satisfied with just ideas, I always pay a lot of efforts to realize them. For example, to change my career, I made so many difficult decisions, applying for another master program, quitting from my job and devoting my into internships in the securities companies. But thanks for those decisions, now I know how it really works in the security market. What’s more, these practice give me a full picture of my knowledge structure, both weakness and strength, so I can pay more attention to the knowledge that I really need after I get into my next master program.
c. I’ve been a professional engineer for 1 and half years and involved in huge projects with billions of investment. Compared to students, I’m more familiar with the real industries and teamwork, I believe it makes me more career-oriented and dedicated.
Which point of your personality you would like to change if you could?
If I have to change some point of my personality, I may be more patient to others. My working ethic is to finish the job as soon as possible, so I always start immediately right after I got a task. That’s great when I’m solo a task. However, other people may have their own working habit, some people are used to starting their part until the deadline comes. If we are in the same team, I can be pushy to others and ask teammates to finish their part of job ahead of time, which sometimes causes the conflicts. Although I believe there is nothing wrong with my purpose, I may need to improve my communication skills, and be wiser while leading other members in a team.
That’s what I want to change if I have to. However, I don't think people have to change their personalities. Because a real human always has merits and flaws. Many people believe they will be perfect once their flaws are changed. But in most of cases, a person’s flaw is actually another aspect of their personality, just like their merits, which means they are two sides of the same coin. If you want to destroy one side, you have to destroy the entire coin.
Of course I’m not saying we shouldn't care about our drawbacks, there are a lot of ways to compensate our defects, for example, cooperating with complementary teammates, but changing the personality might be the most difficult solution.
前二问题的结合？
My most important quality is I’m idealistic and down-to-earth simultaneously. I always have many ideas about my life, but I’m not satisfied with just ideas, I always pay a lot of efforts to realize them. For example, to change my career, I made so many tough decisions, applying for another master program, quitting from my job and devoting myself into internships in the securities companies. But thanks to those actions, now I know how it really works in the security market. What’s more, these practice give me a full picture of my knowledge structure, both weakness and strength, so I can pay more attention to the knowledge that I really need after I get into my next master program.
If I have to change some point of my personality, I may be more patient to others. My working ethic is to finish the job as soon as possible, so I always start immediately right after I got a task. However, some people won't start their part until the deadline comes. If we are in the same team, I can be pushy to others and ask teammates to finish their part of job ahead of time, which sometimes causes the conflicts. Although I believe there is nothing wrong with my purpose, I may need to improve my communication skills.
对 resiliency, 团队合作，work with diverse teams, time management, work under pressure 进行评分，1-4 分，4 是最好，1 是最差 (2:30 作答)
I’d give a 3.5 for the item Resiliency. Resiliency is a quality that can be trained and improved. When I was a kid, I tended to react emotionally to accidents. Then I realized too much emotion had negative impact on my judgement and execution, so I deliberately trained myself to be adaptive and constructive while facing problems. Now I’d be calm enough to carry out solutions instead of panicking while facing difficulties.
I’d give a 4 to my ability to Working With Diverse Teams. I went to America for my first master program, living and cooperating with people from different cultures for almost two years. I once studied and worked with Chinese, Indian, American, Germans, Greeks, students, teachers, engineers and soldiers. So I’m pretty comfortable to work in diverse teams. I’d give a 3 for Time Management. I’m not saying I’m not good at managing my schedule. My career goal is a fund manager, an extremely busy lifestyle can be expected. So time management is the item that I can still improve. I’d give a 4 for Working under Pressure. I learnt how to work under multiple deadlines in Carnegie Mellon University. What’s more, I was once responsible for design scheme of the major project involving an investment over 800 million when I was still an engineer. I am totally fine working under pressure.

Year 2020

Describe a failure? / What's the hardest challenge you’ve ever met? What do you learn from it? / Describe a difficult time and how you reacted to it, positively or negatively? If the situation happened again, would you react differently?
Describe a time you were not satisfied with your work results. How did you discuss it with your professor/manager? how it worked out? Would you do differently if you had it again.
When I was still an engineer without much experience, a girl and I were working on a project. Because I was a freshman, most of my colleagues were trying their best to help me get familiar with the entire project design. But unfortunately, my teammate was unreliable, she just ignored efforts of everybody, and tried to get rid of all her responsibility. Then came the worst part of story, she left for vacation without informing anyone, just before the presentation day, leaving behind tons of work unfinished. A colleague temporarily joined me assisting on the project, we worked all night but still couldn't complete the job perfectly. Finally, the presentation failed.
We spent another two weeks to collect information and modify the original design, because my teammate’s escape for vacation, the necessary documents and data she handled couldn't be shared with us, which make it more difficult to complete the task.
Later, I was told that she was then ready to leave the office and change her job, so she didn't even care about this project. For me, I didn't want to blame too much, but I learned a lesson from her: if you have unreliable teammates, you’d better recheck their work. If you expect they are not going to finish the job, you must replace them with trusted people, or prepare to finish their part of job ahead of time, or they can surprise you at any time, you can never imagine.
Describe a time when you had a problem in team work and how you solved it?
It was three years ago when I was still a rookie engineer. I was waiting for an opportunity to be the main designer for a project. 8 months after I entered the company, the chance was coming. I was asked to be responsible for the presentation of a project. However, I was not glad about this project due to the complexity of it. In fact, the project was so complicated that even my manager misunderstood the purpose of project, so he gave me the wrong direction. I wasted several days on it, then found some problems and posed questions. But my manager just didn't listen because he thought I didn't have enough experience for constructive ideas. He didn't realize his fault until the presentation day. Hearing the clients and experts talking about different topics, everybody was panicking. But I didn't. I was pretty sure that there were problems in the original design, so I had already prepared another version of slides in which the design scheme was illustrated based on my understanding. Fortunately, the presentation was successful. Since then, my voice could be heard in the team, because they knew I can be trusted. The lesson I learnt is whenever your leader or teammates don't trust you, the only way to prove yourself is the better performance. It also let me know the importance of effective communication, so I emphasize the communication in the teamwork.
What types of hobbies do you like in your non-work life?
My biggest hobby now is following the market. I like to read a lot of financial statements and try to research listed companies. The process can be very interesting. When you really find a good company with great potential, you just want to buy its stock. But in most cases, I cannot just buy whatever I want because of the limit of money. So I have to balance between other stocks in my mini portfolio. What I’m used to doing is to transfer money from the companies who grow slower to those grow faster, so that my portfolio will always keep a relatively high growth rate. My portfolio so far has given a rate of return over 350% in two years, I think my strategies are effective enough.
Besides, I have been so addicted to archery that I went to archery range three or four times every week. I practiced so hard that my arm was lashed by the string again and again until full of bruises. But it can be very rewarding when I improved myself through hard practice. The archery is really helpful to release oneself from the pressure of daily work. It forces you to focus on the single target and enter the state of meditation, not to mention the benefits to the health brought by the exercise itself.
Besides, archery is the battle against the target instead of people, which is the characteristic of football or basketball, so you don’t have to worry about the unexpected injury affecting your daily work.
Biggest challenge nowadays for financial institutions? / Explain a challenge that financial corporations face?
I believe the biggest challenge nowadays for all types of financial institutions is the underdevelopment of financial technology. My feeling about this problem is rather strong because I used to be a professional engineer. When I studied in Carnegie Mellon University, I got familiar with physical, chemical and computer technologies, at the same time, I was lucky enough to make many friends who later became engineers and IT professionals. I can say that in many industries related to science, engineering and internet, the technology has developed to an incredible level for the financial industry. If they need to collect and analyze over 200 records of data, every person working in an internet company will try to use software and programming to analyze it, nobody even thinks about collecting data by hands, which is pretty common for practitioners in the financial industry.
The most severe problem is every finance practitioner does a lot of tedious and repeated work day by day, but nobody is able to solve it because many of them don’t even familiar with the power of information technology. As a result, every financial institution need a bunch of interns to help them complete all of the repeated work, which is a waste of human resource, time and the money, and still cannot improve the efficiency. We know this when we are tortured by those terribly developed mobile apps launched by those famous financial institutions.

Year 2018

Give an example how you would add value to the program?
What I can take into the program is the different perspective and view points, for example, I can talk about my real work experience in the research team of investment banks in the team project of cooperate finance class, and provide some analysing methods I once learnt when I was still an engineer.
I mean, I used to be an professional engineer with 7 years of professional training. Mathematics, physics, programming and modelling cultivated my ability of logical thinking, analyzing and reasoning. Musk once said he had a thinking strategy called First Principle, which boiling things down to "the most fundamental truths" and then reasoning up from there. It might seem rather subtle but it’s actually what every well trained engineer or scientist does. We are used to thinking deeply based on basic facts and evidence instead of believing in existing so-called successful prototypes. I’m not saying financial practitioners don't do that, but we are trained for this. If I had the chance to be admitted by this program, I’ll become a valuable teammate and coworker for other students.
I’m also more experienced than many other finance students. I finished my first master program in 2017, and have already worked for 3 years. I had a lot of professional experience, I can therefore give some advice for other students on their career plan. Also, that experience can definitely make me more adaptive to the lifestyle of the graduate study, and thus leading to a better time management, more proactive social activities, better preparation for future career and stronger willing for success.
Give two reasons why we should accept you?
First, I can bring the program the different perspective and view points. I mean, I used to be an professional engineer with 7 years of professional training. Mathematics, physics, programming and modelling cultivated my ability of logical thinking, analyzing and reasoning. Musk once said he had a thinking strategy called First Principle, which boiling things down to "the most fundamental truths" and then reasoning up from there. It might seem rather subtle but it’s actually what every well trained engineer or scientist does. We are used to thinking deeply based on basic facts and evidence instead of believing in existing so-called successful prototypes. I’m not saying financial practitioners don't do that, but we are trained for this. If I had the chance to be admitted by this program, I’ll become a valuable teammate and coworker for other students.
Second, I’m also more experienced than many other finance students. I finished my first master program in 2017, and have already worked for 3 years. I had a lot of professional experience, I can therefore give some advice for other students on their career plan. Also, that experience can definitely make me more adaptive to the lifestyle of the graduate study, and thus leading to a better time management, more proactive social activities, better preparation for future career and stronger willing for success.

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