Preparing for MFE?

[George Lambeth]

Hi, I'm a freshman at Michigan State University particularly interested in financial engineering, however, I want a PhD in econ to stay open as a possibility as well. I just finished up my first semester and would like to start figuring out what it's going to take to get into selective programs - Princeton, Columbia, and Stanford are my top choices.

I plan on double majoring, but I'm not sure which fields I should pursue. Right now I'm a mathematics and economics major, but I'm not sure if it would be better to incorporate computer science or finance.

Furthermore, I'm unsure how I should be spending summers. I'm applying for an internship at the SEC this summer, or I could work possibly work at a boutique investment bank - Alllen & Company (Family members are directors). What exactly would be pertinent for these top programs? Would research be the best bet?

Additionally, would transferring be worthwhile? I was accepted to NYU and Michigan as a freshman and deferred to UChicago, but I only had a 3.5 GPA then, and I managed to pull a 3.9 this first semester with Honors Chemistry, Intermediate Microeconomics, Honors Writing, and Honors Calc 2. I'm very interested in Columbia's undergraduate program in financial engineering, however, their transfer acceptance rate is 5%. Tentatively I'll be taking Honors Physics, Intermediate Macroeconomics, Advanced Linear Algebra, Multivariable Calc, and another class (any suggestions)??

I'm quite sure I want to work with financial markets, however, I'm not sure If I'm more interested in policy and macroeconomics or trading. So I would appreciate any advice and help with the aforementioned questions.

Sincerely,
George

 

[Jose T]

You are at MSU? My advisor from undergrad, Prof Timothy Vogelsang is in the Econ department there now. He's a great guy, you should take his class .

You have some conflicting ambitions. Mathematics and Economics undergrad is great to apply for PhD programs in Econ. If this is what you want to do, you should spend your summers doing research. That would be the best way to make yourself a competitive for PhD programs. If you can publish anything in a field journal, that would be ideal. I doubt your internship at an boutique IB would be a plus or minus to Econ PhD programs.

Econ PhDs do not usually go into financial engineering. Graduate work in economics can have some computational aspect but it is much different from physics, mathematics or engineering which are the more common backgrounds for financial engineering. To my knowledge, Econ undergrad is not a common background for MFE programs either.

The prospects for Econ PhDs are fine notwithstanding and they are often employed at banks, consultancies, government agencies / non-profits, think tanks, etc.

If you want to focus on financial engineering, mathematics and computer science are the big things to focus on with some financial knowledge needed as well (though for financial engineers, the finance education usually comes after the quantitative education). Your summers would be best spent, as you suggest, in some practical internships and you should gain as much coding experience as possible.

If you search these forums, you will see there is general advice against doing an undergraduate in financial engineering even if you want to be a financial engineer. The idea being that you need some quantitative foundation and studying things like BS equation does not provide much value unless you have such a foundation. I agree with that assessment myself though I have no actual knowledge of Columbia's FE Undergrad program.