1, The education of B-school in US are more practical. They usually teach you the concept via cases. When I says cases, I don't mean the examples, I mean 6-20 pages long cases.

2, They are using more up-to-date materials. Sometimes, professor will discuss the new events with students. And based on an efficient market, their application of Finance is kind of professional relative to that in China where a lot of instruments have not been developed and used.

3, One of the advantages is that when you are back to China with a lot of new concept and knowledge in your mind, you can be in the group to develop new stuffs in China. It is a good time because China is going to open its financial market in a couple of years. whoever got more knowledge will excel.

4, The big disadvantage is that it might be difficult to apply new concept in china with what you learned in B-school in US because of the big culture difference and special problems with emerging markets.

Basically, the MSF program in NA is more technical, as margaret1013 said. But, you should be careful because today, a lot of one-year MSF programa in NA actually are simmilar with MBA concentrated in Finance. They do not ask students to do a academic paper and defence. You only take 10 to 14 courses, nothing else. If you want to pursue acadenic achievement, and PhD, you'd better choose one with thesis.

Compared with the Finance in China, I think later you will find that most of knowledge you get from NA is useless in China. For example Black-Schole option price model and M&M corporate finance theory, or arbitrage theory, or Fama-French model is nothing to do with the business and financial practice in China, maybe even not in US and Canada.

On thing you should remember " Networking is the most valuable in your life and career," no matter where you live. So, if you want go back to China, make your network today and choose a school with highest reputation in China. Forget about the knowledge. Compared with students in China, we have less contacts with the business profeddionals. So, choose a top school is more important than Major in Finance, or your GPA. Good luck!!