Good HBR Review. Masters of Data Analysis. The curriculum seems IT-ish.
My research indicates bioinformatics is easier to break into from the outside than the hot, IT-ish areas of data analysis (Big Data) because of the demand for a ginormous database domain knowledge.
Back to Finance, I peruse the job postings constantly. Trading firms want the deep math and computer skills: Math, Computer Science (algorithms), Engineering and Physics. Almost always, MS to PhD level.
However, trading desks/ front office still run on VBA. A personal relation handles one of the biggest limited matury fixed income fund in the country. He runs it with Ms Access which his IT people can't upgrade because his programming is so non-standard.
Which brings up another topic, Wall Street goes thru a refresh of these quant geniuses ( just like the MBA era) like they were m&m's in every business cycle. Definitely painful after going into to hock for $100K-$150K. During the MBA era, I was once on the receiving side of applications (higher position than mine) while in a company I wanted to leave terribly. Seeing all these resumes from incredible people is the most sobering thing. I think I saw a few Managing Directors....equivalent to a mini-president in industrial America.