Current finance major in need of advice

[SwahiIi]

I am currently in my junior year majoring in finance at Northern Arizona University. Not a very great school but the business program seems to be rather solid thus far. Anyways, I messed up by not knowing what I wanted to do with my major when I came to uni. It led me to going fairly soft on the math's and best case scenario in the fall I will be taking Calc 1. I've figured out that I am very interested in quant finance and was wondering if anyone has any suggestions on what I ought to do with regards to my current lack of mathematics?

Would it be worth my time to teach myself Calc 1-3 in my own time? I definitely think that I am capable of that.

The business program at my school also offers an Investments Cert w/ the final courses being a student ran investment fund, one in fixed income and the other in equities. Would a cert like this be worth my time? I'm skeptical since the math prereq is only Finite Math w/ Calculus.

I've also been teaching myself Python, originally I was going through MIT's OpenCourseWare however, I recently started going through the lecture series on Quantopian.

Any suggestions on what I ought to do? I've got 2 more years at Uni and would like to use my time as productively as possible.

Any guidance would be greatly appreciated!

 

[TehRaio]

Not sure what kind of answers you want here. the answer is yes, you messed up. All the fixed income stuff is good for your finance culture so if you have time do it but you need to take Calculus 1-3, ode, linear algebra, and probability theory. Just teaching yourself this stuff on your own won't be of much help when you apply for grad school.

 

[SwahiIi]

I see. Thank you for that, I guess the answer I was looking for is something like reassurance that I'm not completely screwed over if I go down this route. Thank you.

 

[Daniel Duffy]

Pure Mathematics Foundations course.What do you think?

 

[Mikey V]

Not sure what kind of answers you want here. the answer is yes, you messed up. All the fixed income stuff is good for your finance culture so if you have time do it but you need to take Calculus 1-3, ode, linear algebra, and probability theory. Just teaching yourself this stuff on your own won't be of much help when you apply for grad school.

I agree. If you have 2 years left perhaps you can squeeze these courses in. You can always double major and/or take an extra semester to get these courses. Especially if they are offered on certain cycles like many universities?

 

[BlackMamba]

My short and sweet recommendation: ditch the finance major, do an undergrad in mathematics, and complete the CFA Program for your background in finance.

 

[SwahiIi]

My short and sweet recommendation: ditch the finance major, do an undergrad in mathematics, and complete the CFA Program for your background in finance.

See I've been looking at a math major and its 100% doable for me but I'd need another year and my parents would no longer be able to help me at all with school. It is something I am very much considering though.

 

[SwahiIi]

I agree. If you have 2 years left perhaps you can squeeze these courses in. You can always double major and/or take an extra semester to get these courses. Especially if they are offered on certain cycles like many universities?

Do you think double majoring would actually be worth the extra cost ? My parents are helping me out right now, so I am unsure if taking a semester or 2 worth of debt on my own would be worth it.

 

[SwahiIi]

Pure Mathematics Foundations course.What do you think?

Briefly looked through the post. I must say this does sound supremely helpful. I'm going to look further into it tonight, once I get back from work. Thank you for this .

 

[Mikey V]

Do you think double majoring would actually be worth the extra cost ? My parents are helping me out right now, so I am unsure if taking a semester or 2 worth of debt on my own would be worth it.

I suppose it depends whether or not you want to double major or to drop finance major and replace with Mathematics. You can always minor and pick up the required MFE courses. If I were you I’d map out each option in terms of credits to see which is fastest!