Is it good enough?

[edward]

hey guys, i am currently in my second year of undergraduate studies in business administration. i'm reading and reading and reading about graduate programs in quantitative finance and i'm liking it, but i dunno if my undergrad foundation is good enough for such highly quantitative tracks. please check my curriculum, it contains all the courses i will be taking for my bachelor degree. i'm really waiting ur comments

 

[Andy Nguyen]

The computer science courses are on the light side. But again, anything in the business administration degree is quantitative lite.
It may serve some well to get a CS or Math degree. Again, it may be enough for some quant finance programs. It's hard to answer "is it enough".

 

[edward]

i agree with u regarding the programing part , but i thought i could teach myself C++ or any required language, as for the math part i thought that the courses i'm taking are exactly what's required for most of the admission's prerequisites...

Mathematics For Business And Economics 2
Calculus 3
Linear Algebra 1
Calculus 4
Ordinary Differential Equations
Elements Of Probability
Partial Differential Equations
Numerical Methods For Finance
Applied Statistics For Business And Economics 1
Applied Statistics For Business And Economics 2

 

[bluechimp]

I think the math courses on paper sounds 'enough'. But, for instance, I cannot tell what does 'Applied Statistics for Business and Economics' entails.. We can't really give an opinion on how well a course prepares you if we don't know what it teaches and its degree of rigor. There's only so much we can tell since different courses are taught on different standards everywhere. That's partially where the reputation of the institution counts: you're betting that the course is taught on a high standards, being that the institution is of high standard. Of course, this need not be the case. (Most usually, this is not the case).

But, that aside, I think taking some advanced level math classes cannot hurt. Mathematical analysis classes will serve you well to introduce formal mathematics. Modern regression would also be a nice complement to the statistics part (Econometrics, in some places).

By the way, teaching yourself C++ requires some prior knowledge and a lot of determination (at least in my case!).

Good luck.

 

[Sanket Patel]

Bluechimp is correct - teaching yourself C++ is easier said than done. There is a difference between being to do something and actually understanding what it is that you are doing. Besides, with a language like C++, having prior programming experience is big help.

 

[Stefan Zota]

I concur.
If you are fluent in other OOP languages (e.g. Java) then C++ can be learned up to a decent level on your own. If you don't have any background in programming, it is very difficult. Even if you understand some of syntax, you would not really understand what it means.

Actually a Computer Science approach is to spend a few years with procedural (e.g. Pascal, C) or functional (e.g. Caml, Scheme) languages.

 

[bigbadwolf]

i agree with u regarding the programing part , but i thought i could teach myself C++ or any required language, as for the math part i thought that the courses i'm taking are exactly what's required for most of the admission's prerequisites...

Mathematics For Business And Economics 2
Calculus 3
Linear Algebra 1
Calculus 4
Ordinary Differential Equations
Elements Of Probability
Partial Differential Equations
Numerical Methods For Finance
Applied Statistics For Business And Economics 1
Applied Statistics For Business And Economics 2

Bluechimp has already covered most of the salient points. I just want to add my voice to his and point out a couple of other things. There's a difference between satisfying a department's formal requirements and having an applied mathematician's outlook. You really want the latter -- in which case you'll need some more advanced math classes taken in the right spirit. Which means taken not so much as to fulfil formal requirements or even because of possible applications but simply to imbibe the spirit of mathematics. In particular, Linear Algebra 1 makes me uneasy -- you probably want more. Numerical Methods for Finance makes me uneasy -- you probably want a course simply titled Numerical Analysis and offered in the math department, with some programming involved. Elements of Probability makes me uneasy -- again you probably want more, including some measure-theoretic ideas. In which case an introduction to real analysis and its methods of proof would come in handy.

 

[edward]

MAT 205 Mathematics for Business and Economics 2
Accumulation and discounting, simple and compound interest, effective and nominal interest, discount rates, forces of interest and discount, varying interest. Equations of value. Annuities immediate and due. Perpetuities. Amortization schedules and sinking funds. Introduction to bonds. Prerequisite: Sophomore Standing.

MAT 213 Calculus 3
Improper integrals. Infinite sequences and series, power series. Taylor and Maclaurin series. Polar coordinates: graphing, integration and areas in polar coordinates. Vectors and vector-valued functions and motion in space. Prerequisite: MAT 112 or MAT 113 or Placement.

MAT 215 Linear Algebra 1
Linear systems and matrices and their applications; determinants; vector spaces; subspaces, basis and dimension, rank and nullity. Eigenvalues and eigenvectors; linear transformations and their algebraic properties. Prerequisite: Sophomore Standing.

MAT 224 Calculus 4
Cylinders and quadric surfaces. Functions of several variables: limits, continuity, partial derivatives, Chain Rule, directional derivatives, gradients, tangent planes, differentials, extreme values, and Lagrange multipliers. Multiple integrals: areas and volumes, triple integrals in rectangular, cylindrical and spherical coordinates. Integration in vector fields, Green's Theorem in the plane, Stoke's Theorem, the Divergence Theorem. Prerequisite: MAT 213

MAT 235 Ordinary Differential Equations
First-order ordinary differential equations. Higher-order linear differential equations. Power series solution: ordinary and singular points. Laplace transform, convolution. Systems of linear differential equations. Prerequisite: MAT 213.

MAT 325 Elements of Probability
Probability of events; axioms of probability; conditioning and independence; random variable and expectations; discrete and continuous distributions; moment generating functions; the Central Limit Theorem. Corequisite: MAT 224.

MAT 335 Partial Differential Equations
Second order linear partial differential equations - heat, wave and Laplace's equations; Fourier series; separation of variables; Fourier Integral; Fourier and Laplace transforms; Dirichlet and Neumann problems for different domains; first order equations; characteristic method; systems of equations. Prerequisite: MAT 224, MAT 235.

MAT 336 Numerical Methods For Finance
Course content unavailable.

STA 206 Applied Statistics for Business and Economics 1
Descriptive statistics; measures of central tendency and dispersion; introduction to probability; conditional probability; independence; random variables; discrete probability distributions. A statistical software package will be used. Prerequisite: Sophomore Standing.

STA 207 Applied Statistics for Business and Economics 2
Sampling distributions; inferences about a population mean, proportion and variances; experimental design; analysis of variance and covariance; linear regression and correlation. A statistical software package will be used. Prerequisite: STA 206.

 

[edward]

i understand that the math courses that i'll be taking are basics for a quant track , and i know that i need to get involved in more advanced courses but as much as i would love to enroll in these courses , i can't , for the simple fact that i've already delayed my graduation for 3 semester just to take these courses , and i cannot afford to take more :P
anw, i'll follow this track , after all i am majoring in Financial Engineering , eventhough at an undegrd level , it'll still add something to my application package