Testimonials

The programme’s strong focus on both industry and academia helped me secure a full PhD scholarship in the UK

From my experience, the Master’s programme equips students with skills suitable for jobs, both in industry and in academia. On the one hand, students can benefit from the strong connection between the School of Economics and the Industry. There will be guest lectures for almost every course -  so we can directly communicate with current employees about insights into job nature and application tips. Courses are also designed to prepare students with expertise in financial modelling, risk analysis, investment management, and so on. Such preparation, both in technical knowledge and soft skills, is key to success in my internship application at JustEat Takeaway.com, where I further developed corporate skills in the areas of Finance. Besides the business aspect, the programme also offers a wide range of research-oriented courses like Empirical Economics, Fintech, and Python. Through these courses, I was able to significantly hone my research skills, both in data management and regression analysis. In fact, these trainings in econometrics methods and coding skills prove extremely useful in my PhD application, which enabled me to secure a full scholarship for my doctoral studies at Lancaster University Management School for the next four years. All in all, I find the programme truly beneficial for my internal growth, and I would strongly recommend it to students who want to get a cutting-edge education.

— Thinh Nguyen (Vietnam), MSc Graduate

The experience I gained in programming led me to my current role in Finance

The MSc in Banking & Finance at Utrecht caught my eye at a time when I was thinking about my next steps, and I’m glad it did. The programme is directly adapted to the latest innovations in the world of finance, setting it apart from similar courses in this field and making it a great match for my interests. Of particular value for me personally was being able to take courses involving Python and to delve deep into the fundamentals of investment management. The multiple guest speakers, company visits and group projects all enrichened the experience for me, while the small class sizes enabled me to have a lot of interaction with my teachers.

With the wide variety of courses, ranging from analysing financial statements to exploring the mathematics behind models like CAPM, I was able to specialise in my preferred field within the wider finance domain. A good example was the Algorithms in Finance module run in collaboration with Optiver, an Amsterdam-based institutional trading company, which taught us how to create algorithms in Python to trade on arbitrage opportunities and the mean reversion property.

The experience I gained in programming and the wider knowledge I developed during my Master’s ultimately led me to my current role in Finance. I couldn’t imagine doing the work I’m doing today without having studied at Utrecht.

— Jeroen Bouma (The Netherlands), MSc Graduate

A challenging programme that will certainly push your limits!

Pursuing a Master’s degree in Banking and Finance at Utrecht University was a huge step out of my comfort zone, but at the end, it turned out to be one of the best experiences I have had in my life! It was a really challenging academic year filled with lots of lectures, tutorials, group projects, in-house company visits, guest lectures and, of course, lots of hours spent on studying and conducting research. In my opinion, the best thing about this programme is the fact that all courses are extremely connected among themselves – the knowledge obtained from one course is often used as a base for the other courses, making it impossible to forget the things you have learned. The lecturers are not only experts in their fields, but they are also extremely passionate about teaching. They are all down-to-earth people, friendly and easily reachable, which makes the whole studying experience even better. Overall, I highly recommend the Banking and Finance programme to all of you who are eager to learn as much as you can about banks and financial markets, given the real-world perspective it offers. It will certainly push your limits but it will be worth it - the acquired knowledge and skills will make you highly competitive in the job market and will provide you with the opportunity to pursue a great career in the financial sector.

— Sara Duchkova (North-Macedonia), MSc Graduate