Undergraduate Program Advice

[genuine]

Hello, I'm a freshman in uoft engineering science.
I want to be a quant and that's why I chose this program because it has math, stat and finance option starting from 3rd year.
The problem is I will learn so many useless courses during my first and second year such as thermodynamics fluid mechanics etc.

Also, it is harder to get a good GPA here compare to other programs here during the first and second year.
I do enjoy math courses here but other courses, I don't really like them.
I want to apply to graduate school in the state after I graduate.
Do you think it is worth to continue on the program or just transfer to uoft math department?

 

[Qui-Gon]

As useless as courses such as thermo and fluid dynamics may seem, trust me, they are not useless. I realized this when I took my first pdes course and my professor insisted on deriving the heat/wave equations from first principles. I have no background in physics, haven’t even seen Newtonian mechanics, but nonetheless this showcased to me the benefits of “thinking like a physicist”. Physics courses will build your modeling skills, so if it is just 3-4 required physics courses you are not interested in I would say stick it out, especially given engineering science seems to be quite an elite program at uoft. As someone interested in quantitative finance, I would not discount the potential usefulness of fluid dynamics in particular: Turbulence and Financial Markets? and https://arxiv.org/pdf/1609.00471.pdf.

If, on the other hand, you're concerned regarding your ability to do as well in engineering science as you would mathematics for your years 1 and 2, then I would definitely consider changing to math. Though, in many ways this depends on what kind of graduate programs you are considering.