I'm at CMU right now doing the finance track in tepper but I'm thinking of applying for comp fi in the spring. How much would this help if I'm leaning towards M&A but wouldn't be opposed to S&T? I don't have that much by way of S&T experience so I went after a M&A internship in Asia for the summer. Is it worth it to take get into this major in general?
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i;d like to hear the answer to this as welll............
Financial Engineering gives you the mathematical background to price options and other exotic derivatives (stochastic calculus, ito calculus, etc.) It would be absolutely useless to an Investment Banker, they don't use any of that shit, they just deal mostly with excel and powerpoint, the most math they do is four functions. Maybe they will do some basic bootstrapping of the curve if they are really "advanced."
So to the next point: is FinEng useful for trading? I think it helps out a bit with the learning curve and understanding what drives the greeks if you are on an options desk I guess, but it is not essential obviously. It is more to show that you are intelligent enough to handle complex material than anything else. The Quants (PHD's in Math, Engineering, Physics, etc) are the ones who actually build the models for pricing and vol, so it's not like you ever need to know how to do ito integrals on the desk.
agreed, financial engineering is more for trading at a bank or even hedge funds with quantitative strategies, but completely useless in M&A settings, but some classes in financial engineering do carry over to M&A, although you already have a finance background.
SO, if you're trying to get to trading, and not M&A/IPO stuff, it may be useful?
For options, prob useful. What about equities/futures trading?
I went to CMU. Graduated in 2008.
Comp Finance is useful for S&T. For M&A it's useless.
To be honest, not many companies actively recruit from CMU for M&A, although plenty do for S&T, especially if you did Comp Finance.
Also what year are you? I don't think you can switch to a Comp Finance major if you are older than sophomore year. A minor would be possible.
I'm a sophomore. I can't do a minor if I'm tracking in finance, and if I didn't get into comp fi I would probably stick with less math-intensive courses. Did you have any experience with or know anyone in comp fi by chance?
I knew a guy who did a minor in Comp Fi (4.0 GPA). He works as a market maker at Optiver. (Although you don't need Comp Fi to get the job, just pass their tests)
Heard of a guy who majored in comp fi (3.8 GPA). He does S&T at Morgan right now.
Try to take as many comp fi courses as possible. If you list them on your resume, there is a good chance that the recruiters will notice.
So it sounds like mathematical finance (and financial engineering) are useful if you want to be a trader. Is that all they're useful for? What if you want to be a financial analyst or portfolio manager in AM or HF?
Can someone answer this question?
hmm, it's not that useful even for most of the traders, unless you are trading things like rates volatility. Those things are more useful for portfolio managers. The forefront of research these days are things like consumption models which are for assets managers.
CFA or MBA would be more applicable to AM/HF
Here is the placement for CMU MSCF (It's all trading/quant/risk) --> http://www.tepper.cmu.edu/master-in-computational-finance/your-career/r…
is it worth taking on extra math classes (time + potential gpa drag-down) to make sure that you can list "minor in computational finance" or "continuous-time finance"? or would time be better spent increasing your GPA?
if your primary major weren't physics/CS/math (but just regular finance) would knowledge of computational finance grab the attention of recruiters? or even qualify you for quantitative positions?
Bumping.
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