• TIME TO 2024 UK RANKINGS

  • C++ Programming for Financial Engineering
    Highly recommended by thousands of MFE students. Covers essential C++ topics with applications to financial engineering. Learn more Join!
    Python for Finance with Intro to Data Science
    Gain practical understanding of Python to read, understand, and write professional Python code for your first day on the job. Learn more Join!
    An Intuition-Based Options Primer for FE
    Ideal for entry level positions interviews and graduate studies, specializing in options trading arbitrage and options valuation models. Learn more Join!

Econ major & math minor — MFE program possible?

JacobTyler

JacobTyler

Joined
1/14/13
Messages
7
Points
13
Hi, newbie to the QuantNet community here. I was wondering about my chances of getting into a master's of financial engineering program with a major in economics and a minor in mathematics. How willing are most programs to take students that didn't major in math, physics, or computer science? Are there other types of programs that might still give me a taste of this kind of stuff that I would have a greater chance of getting into?

Thanks for any help or words of wisdom :)
 
Hey, im new here too. And I was wondering the same thing, kind of. Im a finance major and math minor from a non target school. Im graduating in may, and will probably work for a year while taking a C++ course. What are the profiles of some of the people who have gotten admitted into MFE programs, if you dont mind me asking. thanks
 
Hi, I am new too. I guess minor in mathematics is good enough as long as it covers two semester calculus, one semester of statistics, probabilities, time series and linear algebra. This might help http://ieor.columbia.edu/admissions-questions

Also, Ahakim can look for : http://mfe.baruch.cuny.edu/admission-stats/

By the way, I was also looking for a help.
I am also doing major in economics and ( computer science or applied mathematics). The reason why I am adding cs or maths is that econ in my school is a very light major ( 7 major courses and 4 electives). So, to make the academic portion of my resume strong, and I am good with numbers, I was thinking of adding one more major. I am good at maths and I know I won't struggle to maintain good GPA doing it. However, I was also considering CS because CS graduates are always hired more than any other majors. Any thought which combination of econ cs or maths goes better?? Please correct me if I am wrong.
 
As far as my knowledge goes, I think the difference between the CS and math backgrounds would be relatively small, especially if you did a lot of programming in some of your math classes. It also depends on what exactly you want to do. If you wanna be a quant, then I think CS might be marginally better, but again, I am not a quant (yet). But I think a lot of other fields would also place high value on a math background. And I know grad schools in econ like to see a lot of math. I found this post pretty helpful from Mankiw's blog when I was beginning to get more interested in math: http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2006/05/which-math-courses.html
 
Keep in mind that the math in econ courses is often thought of as not very challenging. Good on you for taking math as minor. To compensate, you need to take the minimum and more at a rate that you may end up with a second major in math.
Take a few demanding programming courses that require you to write a lot of code.
ahakim said:
What are the profiles of some of the people who have gotten admitted into MFE programs, if you dont mind me asking
Click to expand...
Take a look at the Tracker and filter the results to show only those that got admitted. Then read your profiles. That should give you a cross section view of people who got into different programs.
 
Back
Top