Which is better: Graduate Probability or Complex Variables?

[esahione]

All:

Which do you think would help me prepare the most for a MFE?

A graduate-level probability class (in this case I would have 4 probability classes overall, 2 undergraduate-level and 2 graduate-level by the time I end my degree), or complex variables? I'll be attending a Stochastic Processes class, albeit not for credit, as well.

Other options:

Taking 2 graduate-level mathematics programming classes, or re-take honors calculus.

Thanks.

 

[Connor]

The 2 graduate-level mathematics programming classes sound promising. Doing well on graduate-level math courses will look good on your application.

 

[esahione]

The 2 graduate-level mathematics programming classes sound promising. Doing well on graduate-level math courses will look good on your application.

The problem is that the course is mostly guided towards applied mathematics in Matlab, not exactly C++ or any related course.

Do you think that having 4 probability classes would be overkill?

 

[goodstudent]

The problem is that the course is mostly guided towards applied mathematics in Matlab, not exactly C++ or any related course.

Do you think that having 4 probability classes would be overkill?

Yeah I think 4 probability courses is overkill. Unless the material is in the grad classes are more advanced, which I doubt. Advanced probability is just stochastic which you are taking already.

 

[Connor]

See dstefan's comment

 

[dstefan]

In finance, Matlab is used mostly for prototyping, and even that is relatively rare. For employment purposes, 80% of jobs require knopwledge of C++, maybe 5% knowledge of Matlab.

 

[esahione]

In finance, Matlab is used mostly for prototyping, and even that is relatively rare. For employment purposes, 80% of jobs require knopwledge of C++, maybe 5% knowledge of Matlab.

This is the reason why I don't think it will be useful to spend my time learning Matlab, especially because I do know how to program quite well in C++ and C#.

Yeah I think 4 probability courses is overkill. Unless the material is in the grad classes are more advanced, which I doubt. Advanced probability is just stochastic which you are taking already.

They are more advanced, obviously. They cover a lot more material, and a lot more distributions than in the undergrad class.

Furthermore, the course is given at a higher level: while my undergrad courses are calculus-based, the graduate-level course focuses a lot more on multivariate distributions and estimation.

Which I think would be extremely useful, since one often needs to understand and model the stochastic processes behind multi-dimensional problems in finance.

Furthermore, probability is at the heart of financial engineering, without a firm grip on all of its facets I find it difficult to believe one would be a great financial engineer.

Matlab is used in many MFE programs and in practice.

I agree, but if I want to do rapid programming I'd probably prefer to work with C# than with Matlab, since I'm a lot more proficient at C# than I'll be with Matlab even after taking a class in it. Having to learn all the libraries I believe would significantly hinder my performance at first.