How to 'demonstrate knowledge of Finance'?

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Angie L

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Hi people, would like to hear your opinions on this.

I believe most MFEs have a finance background prerequisite, for Baruch it's "demonstrated by one undergraduate class or work experience"

Since I was trained to be a mechanical engineer, and am currently working in RnD, how would you suggest i go about this? Other than taking an undergraduate course as a total outsider (to my alma mater) now?

Would appreciate if any fellow M.engs that are already in the fin engineering field could give me a tip or two.

Thanks in advance. :)
 
Just an example of what I would do in this situation but take it with a grain of salt though.

1. Register on http://quant.stackexchange.com/ with your real name.
2. Contribute
3. Include link to profile in your CV
4. ...
5. Profit !!!
 
Angie L said:
Hey, thanks for the advice.. Did you do it this way?
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No, I contribute from time to time to this and other sites on stackexchange.com, however I've never applied to any MFE program - I was thinking about this some time ago though.
 
Andy Nguyen said:
If taking a course is not an option, at least get Hull's Options and work through it and mention it in your SOP. If you get to the interview stage, be sure to know what a call option, forward contract, put-call parity, etc is.
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But erm.. don i have to demonstrate formal financial knowledge before they ll consider me for an interview?
 
Take the CFA level 1 exam. The level 1 exam covers basically everything in finance undergrad. Level 2 is more focused on equity valuation. Level 3 more on portfolio management. Level 1 is given 2 times a year.
 
purplyboy said:
Take the CFA level 1 exam. The level 1 exam covers basically everything in finance undergrad. Level 2 is more focused on equity valuation. Level 3 more on portfolio management. Level 1 is given 2 times a year.
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Hey thanks for the suggestion, but i ve heard this exam requires a lot of preparation, after which you may still fail.. have you taken it before?
 
Angie L said:
Hey thanks for the suggestion, but i ve heard this exam requires a lot of preparation, after which you may still fail.. have you taken it before?
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I'm a mechanical engineer too without any finance background and that's what I did. It gives you broad, fundamental finance knowledge, which you need to acquire somehow sooner or later anyway. If you pass, it is at least an official attestation to the fact that you at least know something about finance.
 
jackcoke said:
I'm a mechanical engineer too without any finance background and that's what I did. It gives you broad, fundamental finance knowledge, which you need to acquire somehow sooner or later anyway. If you pass, it is at least an official attestation to the fact that you at least know something about finance.
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Hey Jack, thanks! I ve been dying to find a m.eng senior so that i could get some ideas from this point of view.:)

So you took the CFA level 1, did you study it on your own? was it tough (i know this can be subjective, just your thoughts)?
 
Angie L said:
Hey Jack, thanks! I ve been dying to find a m.eng senior so that i could get some ideas from this point of view.:)

So you took the CFA level 1, did you study it on your own? was it tough (i know this can be subjective, just your thoughts)?
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Almost everyone from a quantitative background will tell you that CFA L1 is not tough at all, just a hell of a lot of stuff to read through. I think 100+ hours will guarantee success for most people with an engineering background but no finance background. I'm saying this as I know quite a lot of friends from my engineering cohort who ended up taking CFAs.

I knew someone who took a week off from work the week before the exam, and studied non-stop the whole week (never studied at all before the final week). I guess it still clocks up to 100+ hours but that's madness to me (and he did the same thing for all 3 levels, passed first attempt each level). He had finance background though.

I studied L1 on my own because I was disciplined enough to keep to a tight schedule :). Doing practice exams near the actual is key to doing well on the actual day.

Bear in mind I haven't 'passed' yet, my results are out on Jan 24. Fingers crossed though, the test felt smooth enough that I should be good. ;)
 
I wouldn't underestimate any of the CFA exams. I've seen people in the finance field fail it. The key to passing level 1 is doing as many questions as possible on the schweser testbank or old exams and make sure you can understand them. When I did that the exam questions were harder than the Schweser questions. Just reading the books for level 2 will take you more than 100 hours. I wouldn't recommend that for level 2, there are a lot of formulas to remember, probably more than 100. Some of them aren't difficult formulas, but you still have to remember them and how to plug values into those equations.
 

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