Why isnt an Operations Research degree more valuable/desirable?

When looking at quant finance job postings it would seem that or would be an ideal degree. It provides high level math, especially math stats, economics, modeling and computer science. Those are essentially the main skills wanted for most finance roles. So why isnt one of the more requested degrees?

7 Comments
 

Interested to know too.

Another question - Will an Ops Research degree pidgeon hole you for quant roles?

 

I think the name, though it is also called other things, is a big problem. If you look up a program or search it. It is definitely highly quantitative and to my original point concentrates on the quantitative subject matter most relevant to finance.

It is typically offered as a ms or phd. It is also offered through business schools as well as engineering departments.

 

In the UK if you do pure maths degree at some universities you have to study a module called Operations research. So it is not a desirable degree on its own if you could get it for free studying maths

 

I'm not an expert by any means, but from my understanding it is viewed as way too theoretical and thus more suited for academia than practical application in a field like finance. Operations Research / Industrial Engineering would be much better for industry than finance for a variety of reasons but mostly due to the lack of overlap in school curriculum and work skill requirements.

You'd have to ask @"IlliniProgrammer" for a sure answer, but to me it seems that if you do it in undergrad then go for an MFE, you could be pretty set.

 

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