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- 12/29/06
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- 28
24 November 2009
Sarah Butcher
Last week, we ran a Q&A with Paul Wilmott, ber quant and progenitor of the Certificate in Quantitative Finance (CQF).
During that conversation, Wilmott said some controversial things about financial services MScs and PhDs, including that his heart sinks whenever he comes across one on the grounds that, they have transformed mathematical finance into a very abstract branch of probability theory, and crowded out all the physicists, chaos theorists, applied mathematicians and engineers who have something equally if not more valid to add.
We have therefore given the director of a financially focused MSc course a chance to retaliate.
Dirk Nitzsche, senior finance lecturer and director of the MSc in financial mathematics at Cass, answers our questions related to Wilmott, and broader quant issues, below.
Are your students finding jobs as easily as they used to?
At the moment finding a job in the financial sector is obviously more difficult than it was a few years ago when people from my courses had no problems getting jobs and didnt use our careers service at all. It is improving slowly now and I know that quite a few of my students from last year went on to jobs in risk management and hedge funds and other positions with investment banks.
Whats happening to applications for your quant courses?
Last year we saw a huge increase in applications across all our masters programmes. This year, the number of applicants for our quants Masters programmes was pretty constant, but the number we accepted was down 5-10% as there werent enough students with the required qualifications. Students need to show a strong quantitative background and we look for graduates with a first degree in maths, stats, science, engineering, quantitative economics, at a 2.1 or in exceptional circumstances a high 2.2. Students who do not have this background will struggle with the very demanding quantitative Masters programme.
How do you think maths will be applied in finance over the next five years?
Quant focused graduates will be needed in risk management, hedge funds and the asset management industry. Structuring and structured products will be back, but it will be different products which need to be structured and financial engineered. For example, retail investors who are interested in equity products and vary of the downside risk would be interested in products which capture their specific risk return profile.
Are there many students on your course who have also studied the CQF?
No. Our students are slightly younger they usually come to us straight from university. The CQF is more for students who are already in the workplace.
How do you feel about Paul Wilmotts claim that financial services MScs have reduced maths in finance to a branch of probability theory?
In our masters course we cover everything that is needed in the financial sector, including probability, maths, finance and common sense. Probability theory is important: if you work in finance you have to make decisions under uncertainty. Statistics and probability theory are very useful for that, but so are mathematical models. A lot of mathematicians are very weak on the statistical side; they see everything very much 'black and white'. That is a problem as finance is not as simple as that.
What are the advantages of an MSc over a CQF?
I think there are four broad advantages. They are
1) Face to face contact there are some classes for the CQF, but my understanding is that most of the CQF students do the programme online. If you want to teach students common sense it makes a big difference if mathematicians are able to talk to a lecturer about how the different financial concepts are being interpreted. They can get much more out of it that way and they seemed to understand it much better.
2) Group coursework all the modules of our MSc course involve coursework for groups of 3-4 students. This teaches them a lot about working together in 'teams' to solve problems. Students can improve their interpersonal skills, which is also very much desired by financial companies.
3) Closed book exams if youre studying the CQF I understand that you take exams at home, in an open book fashion. Our exams are all taken in invigilated examination halls in which students dont have recourse to books for help. I feel that this is necessary if you really want to test how good someone is at managing financial concepts.
4) Breadth all masters courses offer electives and specialisations. The CQF only offers core modules. Students of our programmes are able to study those core subjects, as well as modules such as behavioural finance, technical analysis or trading and pricing exotic options.
Source Finance jobs, banking jobs, recruitment in investment banking & in the financial markets
Sarah Butcher
Last week, we ran a Q&A with Paul Wilmott, ber quant and progenitor of the Certificate in Quantitative Finance (CQF).
During that conversation, Wilmott said some controversial things about financial services MScs and PhDs, including that his heart sinks whenever he comes across one on the grounds that, they have transformed mathematical finance into a very abstract branch of probability theory, and crowded out all the physicists, chaos theorists, applied mathematicians and engineers who have something equally if not more valid to add.
We have therefore given the director of a financially focused MSc course a chance to retaliate.
Dirk Nitzsche, senior finance lecturer and director of the MSc in financial mathematics at Cass, answers our questions related to Wilmott, and broader quant issues, below.
Are your students finding jobs as easily as they used to?
At the moment finding a job in the financial sector is obviously more difficult than it was a few years ago when people from my courses had no problems getting jobs and didnt use our careers service at all. It is improving slowly now and I know that quite a few of my students from last year went on to jobs in risk management and hedge funds and other positions with investment banks.
Whats happening to applications for your quant courses?
Last year we saw a huge increase in applications across all our masters programmes. This year, the number of applicants for our quants Masters programmes was pretty constant, but the number we accepted was down 5-10% as there werent enough students with the required qualifications. Students need to show a strong quantitative background and we look for graduates with a first degree in maths, stats, science, engineering, quantitative economics, at a 2.1 or in exceptional circumstances a high 2.2. Students who do not have this background will struggle with the very demanding quantitative Masters programme.
How do you think maths will be applied in finance over the next five years?
Quant focused graduates will be needed in risk management, hedge funds and the asset management industry. Structuring and structured products will be back, but it will be different products which need to be structured and financial engineered. For example, retail investors who are interested in equity products and vary of the downside risk would be interested in products which capture their specific risk return profile.
Are there many students on your course who have also studied the CQF?
No. Our students are slightly younger they usually come to us straight from university. The CQF is more for students who are already in the workplace.
How do you feel about Paul Wilmotts claim that financial services MScs have reduced maths in finance to a branch of probability theory?
In our masters course we cover everything that is needed in the financial sector, including probability, maths, finance and common sense. Probability theory is important: if you work in finance you have to make decisions under uncertainty. Statistics and probability theory are very useful for that, but so are mathematical models. A lot of mathematicians are very weak on the statistical side; they see everything very much 'black and white'. That is a problem as finance is not as simple as that.
What are the advantages of an MSc over a CQF?
I think there are four broad advantages. They are
1) Face to face contact there are some classes for the CQF, but my understanding is that most of the CQF students do the programme online. If you want to teach students common sense it makes a big difference if mathematicians are able to talk to a lecturer about how the different financial concepts are being interpreted. They can get much more out of it that way and they seemed to understand it much better.
2) Group coursework all the modules of our MSc course involve coursework for groups of 3-4 students. This teaches them a lot about working together in 'teams' to solve problems. Students can improve their interpersonal skills, which is also very much desired by financial companies.
3) Closed book exams if youre studying the CQF I understand that you take exams at home, in an open book fashion. Our exams are all taken in invigilated examination halls in which students dont have recourse to books for help. I feel that this is necessary if you really want to test how good someone is at managing financial concepts.
4) Breadth all masters courses offer electives and specialisations. The CQF only offers core modules. Students of our programmes are able to study those core subjects, as well as modules such as behavioural finance, technical analysis or trading and pricing exotic options.
Source Finance jobs, banking jobs, recruitment in investment banking & in the financial markets
