The Ultimate Quant Prep

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CGiuliano

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I recently was accepted to Cornell University as an undergrad transfer. I spent some time investigating which major would best prepare me to enter graduate school for FE.

I came across Operations Research and Information Engineering which, in my opinion seems like the ultimate FE prep major.

Thoughts? Comments? Disagreements?

Engineering Distributions

ENGRD 270: Basic Engineering Probability and Statistics (required)

ENGRD 211a: Objected-Oriented Programming and Data Structures

Required Major Courses

OR&IE 312: Industrial Data and Systems Analysis

OR&IE 320: Optimization I

OR&IE 321: Optimization II

OR&IE 350: Financial and Managerial Accounting

OR&IE 360: Engineering Probability and Statistics II

OR&IE 361: Introductory Engineering Stochastic Processes I

OR&IE 580: Monte Carlo Simulation

OR&IE 581: Discrete-Event Simulation
 
It is a good curriculum.
Not sure how you can cover data structures and OOP in one class. This requires at least 2 classes. A class in algorithms is also needed to link together these concepts.

Some items that are missing:
1. >2 classes of Calculus are needed to step into an Applied Math environment.
2. An introduction to linear algebra
 
What about a course that introduces you to formal maths (i.e. proofs and the likes)? Real Analysis sounds like a good complement to the current schedule.
 
Stefan Zota said:
It is a good curriculum.
Not sure how you can cover data structures and OOP in one class. This requires at least 2 classes. A class in algorithms is also needed to link together these concepts.

Some items that are missing:
1. >2 classes of Calculus are needed to step into an Applied Math environment.
2. An introduction to linear algebra
Click to expand...

Those are the core courses. All students must also complete calc 1,2,3 linear, diffEQ, two intro prog. classes and 15 elective courses.

I will take these electives:

ORIE 5600 Financial Engineering with Stochastic Calculus I
ORIE 5610 Financial Engineering with Stochastic Calculus II
ORIE 5620 Credit Risk: Modeling, Valuation, and Management
ORIE 4600 Introduction to Financial Engineering
 
bluechimp said:
What about a course that introduces you to formal maths (i.e. proofs and the likes)? Real Analysis sounds like a good complement to the current schedule.
Click to expand...

Calculus and real analysis are separate fields. For simplicity you can consider real analysis to be part of statistics/probability.

"formal maths (i.e. proofs and the likes)" is an interesting expression. Mathematics is based on proofs and by definition it is formal.
In physics you can talk about empirical, or in Computer Science you can talk about formal algorithm proofs. This is not the case for Math.
 
Planning for FE from freshman year?

I see many on here planning on an MFE from freshman or sophomore year...

I always say the MFE/MSCF as a career-switcher's degree. A crash course for strong physicists, mathematicians, programmers, engineers, etc. to start a new career at finance. Because they were older and had significant exposure to quantitative fields, MFE/MSCF degrees to could get right down to it (and had to).

If you know that you want to be a quant, why not prepare from the ground up? It seems that if you dual-majored in comp sci and economics (or econ and math with some electives) you could bypass the MFE/MSCF altogether. If you love these fields then you can continue on with a PhD in either... these days that seems to be the safest bet.

Even great programs like Baruch and CMU are having a hard time placing interns and grads, so it seems that a more fundamental major is worthwhile.
 

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