Curriculum of the Future?

[Jose T]

Hi,

I have been reading this forum for past couple days. Thanks for providing these insights to all the posters.

I may make some incorrect assumptions, but... it appears that many (or most) receiving a 'quant' specific education will not be working as quants, if we define quant narrowly to mean front desk quant involved in trading support regarding options and derivatives.

Also, it appears to me (maybe I'm wrong) that most MFE, Math Finance, etc. etc., have fairly similar curriculum which appears to train their attendees to be front desk quants (with full knowledge that the many (most?) of the attendees will not have this job at any point in their career).

I am currently enrolled in the Rutgers MSMF. Certainly Rutgers curriculum at least is so based. I am not too worried about this, personally. I am an in-state student, paying reasonable tuition, and actually I enjoy the study of mathematics and wanted to get off the work treadmill for a bit and earn a graduate credential. Because I did not want to move my family, RU was the only sensible choice for me, though I understand if other people have frustrations but I have no problem with the school (of course when applying I was aware this was a tier 2/3 school, I think everyone who lives in NJ is aware this).

If we like to imagine 'quant' outside of the above narrow definition as some who works in the space of meaningfully (non-cookie cutter) mathematical and statistical methods and, without having worked in these areas, let me arbitrarily guess that some things that MFE, etc grads do more commonly get jobs in such as risk management, statistical research, quant development will fit the wider umbrella of 'quant'.

My question is, then, what is the best curriculum for 'a generally quantitative person'? Is the front desk quant curriculum still valid simply because it is in some sense 'the hardest'? Or would there be other courses more suitable?

I see reading lists posted like the one on this site to be heavily skewed to someone who wants to learn derivatives pricing. Would it make sense to compile reading lists for those not inclined to be front desk quants (or indeed when these opportunities seem to be oversaturated with applicants)? Or maybe knowledge of derivatives pricing is simply fundamental to any 'generally quantitative person' who likes to work in Finance?

It's a fairly mute point for me. My curriculum has already been set. But I would be interested in others thoughts on what the future of this type of education should be.

 

[euroazn]

The issue is seekers of a graduate degree are pursuing the degree generally for obtaining a job. Thus the curriculum has to be centered around that.

If it weren't the case, I'd say more abstract, theoretical math, simply because it trains the mind more! But there are far fewer jobs that need the specific skill-set of theoretical math.

This is a pretty interesting question, I'm curious to see what some people answer.

 

[John]

My question is, then, what is the best curriculum for 'a generally quantitative person'? <<<

The curriculum that by the end of your journey, you would be able to read and understand a graduate level mathematical finance paper, and translate the key models and algorithms into readable pseudocode. Better yet, if you take this a step further, implement the pseudocode in a compiled language such as C++ and test the model and verify paper's output with real data, that is even better (I know I am speaking in general terms for a quantitative 'finance' person, but you get my drift here...).

 

[IlyaKEightSix]

Why does the language need to necessarily be compiled? R works perfectly well for backtesting. In fact, there exists a full cachet of packages designed specifically to load tick data, and create backtests.

 

[John]

Why does the language need to necessarily be compiled? R works perfectly well for backtesting. In fact, there exists a full cachet of packages designed specifically to load tick data, and create backtests.

I hear you. Use a package such as R for prototyping, research or backtesting your strategies. But for production, compiled code are obviously better.

 

[IlyaKEightSix]

Ah. True. But I suppose that there are people with hard compsci development degrees for that stuff that simply take a strategy and code it. That way, they focus on being master programmers, while the quants focus on finding/testing the strategies. That way, everyone wins.

 

[alain]

But for production, compiled code are obviously better.

how is that better?

 

[Andy Nguyen]

OP may find the front page article by Aaron Brown interesting
http://www.quantnet.com/five-ways-to-improve-quantitative-finance-curricula/

And if you search for, Sylvain Raynes' pointed articles, the issue is not new. You will find that majority of programs have been using the derivatives pricing framework to teach their students for far too long, even now, years after the financial crisis. If you look around, you will find very few programs that have any significant changes in the curriculum pre vis-a-vis post-crisis. And I don't expect this to change at all. Old habit is hard to change and all that.
So it falls into prospective applicants to ask these questions to the programs what they have done to prepare their graduates better. And I don't expect many students to even bother asking "how this program will prepare me to be more employable in the future?".