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Why not an UNDERGRAD Financial Engineering program?

riskoptima

Joined
6/29/09
Messages
2
Points
11
Dear Friends,

I am a financial engineering scholar who wants to start an UNDERGRADUATE Financial Engineering (FE) program in Turkey. (Received my Ph.D. from Columbia University's IEOR Department)

The Executive Council of Universities in TURKEY, a.k.a. (YOK), does not allow me to start an undergraduate program unless it has already been started elsewhere in the world in at least 3 occasions.

I am baffled to find out that there are only TWO in the world. One in Singapur and one in Kenya.

Why are there no UNDERGRAD FE programs in the Western World?

How can we get them started?

Thanks in advance.

Dr. Ilkay Boduroglu
 
To be more specific, it's a FE concentration

2009 - 2010 SEAS Bulletin:Undergraduate Programs
B.S. in Operations Research: Financial Engineering

The operations research concentration in financial engineering is designed to provide students with an understanding of the application of engineering methodologies and quantitative methods to finance. Financial engineering is a multidisciplinary field integrating financial theory with economics, methods of engineering, tools of mathematics, and practice of programming. Students graduating with this concentration are prepared to enter careers in securities, banking, financial management, and consulting industries, and fill quantitative roles in corporate treasury and finance departments of general manufacturing and service firms.

Students who are interested in pursuing the rigorous concentration in financial engineering must demonstrate proficiency in calculus, computer programming, linear algebra, ordinary differential equations, probability, and statistics. Applications to the concentration will be accepted during the fall semester of the sophomore year, and students will be notified of the departmental decision by the end of that spring semester. The department is seeking students who demonstrate strength and consistency in all the above-mentioned areas. Application to this concentration is available online: OR: Financial Engineering Application.
 
Let's add two more so YOK allows you to add another to the worldwide list

Asbury College: Wilmore KY Majors

In recent years, the need for additional analytical and technical skills in financial and risk analysis has grown significantly. The technical nature of modern financial and economic analysis requires a student with a strong mathematical and computational background in addition to strong skills in business and economics. The financial mathematics major is designed to provide the student with these skills.


Ball State University - Option 3: Financial Mathematics

Option 3: Financial Mathematics
Mixing applied mathematics with specialized finance fields can lead to an exciting combination that prepares you for Wall Street or Main Street banking and investment, money management, or insurance careers. A major in mathematical sciences with an option in financial mathematics can give you the foundation you need.
 
HI riskoptima,
Please tolerate me for my curiosity. May I ask why you want to join an UNDERGRADUATE Financial Engineering (FE) program after you received a Ph.D. from Columbia University's IEOR Department ?

As a final year student in my undergraduate Quantitative Finance (QF), I sometimes feel wary of my future career. I perceive that an undergraduate QF program offer me a chance to take different courses from Maths, Business, Computer Science. This advantage somehow is also a shortcoming of an undergraduate QF program. I am not as good in Maths/ Computer science/ Finance as the students who solely major in each field respectively. Most of the courses are "touched and go". Hence I did not have enough practice or chance and time to master what I learned.

It is merely my opinion. I wish to hear from your point of views.
 
For the record, Columbia's undergrad FE program does not get you a quant job, although it's quite possibly the best program in the world for getting to anywhere on Wall Street with only a B.S.

A former high school classmate of mine has one and she's at Barclay's now in their i-banking division after two internships at Lehman.
 
Thank you Andy, Edward and everyone else who have posted examples of UNDERGRAD Financial Engineering programs throughout the world.

You have really helped me. I needed these specific examples in order to be able to start a new undergrad FE department in Turkey.

Dr. Ilkay Boduroglu
 
There is a Financial Mathematics undergraduate program at Michigan also. However I believe it's very different from their MFE program.
 
^Yes but I believe the concentration is called "Mathematics of Finance and Risk Management" or "Financial Mathematics" not "Actuarial Mathematics." It's a shared page because they take many of the same courses, have the same core requirements. Similar to how they have all of these: http://www.math.lsa.umich.edu/undergrad/math-sci.shtml

Also, if you look at the course descriptions of some of the classes you can take, many seem similar to those you'd see in Financial Engineering programs (minus the Finance and programming, but still many similarities). There are also a number of Financial Engineering-type courses under the Industrial Engineering program there, which you can take as an undergrad.
 
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