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Undergraduate Program Advice

Joined
11/24/20
Messages
1
Points
11
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?
 
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.
 
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