<p>My son is considering changing his major from Computer Science to Computational Finance (possibly a double major in CS). He's just looking into it, not making any decisions yet. I know people change their majors many times in college nowadays, but this was rather unexpected. Does anyone know about this degree? We're paying alot of $$ for college-painfully-is there still a job market for this? It is a prestigous school, but things in the finance industry have been looking pretty bleak lately, though hopefully this won't last forever. Any opinions? I don't know anyone who is in this field. Thanks.</p>
<p>Could you explain a bit more as to what is Computational Finance? Is this a major within CS or Finance?</p>
<p>Thanks to wikipedia I found out what this is. My comments are solely based on finding a job, as someone who hires technical people occasionally. I’m sure it is an interesting and valuable major. It actually sounds like a good major - combining computer science and finance. It looks like it is for computer scientists / mathematical analysts who want to concentrate in the financial arena, although I suspect that you would learn enough computer science to do programming anywhere. At CMU at least it is taught in the business department.</p>
<p>It sounds like a good major except for a few issues-
- I never heard of it, maybe other people haven’t either.
- Some jobs may list/require CS degreees. Then some HR person searching through a pile of resumes might just toss one out with this major.</p>
<p>I would think the best path would be a dual major or major/minor combination so you can at least get the better known major area (CS) onto the resume somewhere.</p>
<p>Now, if the student is going to a well known higher ranked university (like CMU or an Ivy or something) and graduates with a good GPA I don’t think it matters as much as long as the major is computer related. Not fair, but I think that’s just the way it is.</p>
<p>This BA degree shows the kid took some applied math/cs and economics/finances. Not much differenct from an econ major kid with lots of math courses. The degree gives an employer a sense of feeling that the kids know little about (financial) derivatives. However, like an economist, Master degree is minimum, PhD is preferred to be a quant in derivatives area of majoy players … most of them I’ve had dealt with had math or physics PhDs. If a kid wants to be in a trading/sales of derivative products, the degree from the TOP schools may do it.</p>
<p>I worked in such capacity 25 years ago, back then we didn’t have such fancy name. I wrote a long reply a few hours ago, but deleted it because I wanted to make sure it is what I thought it was. It is applied math for finance, but very basic finance. What I mean by that is true quant in finance usually has a PhD. The degree could be used in areas like structured derivatives, asset securitization or risk management. Many quants are also very proficient in programming, or they could do a lot of end user computing. They would often work with a team of programmers to implement their models (to structure deals, projection of future interest rate, credit risk). Sometimes if programmers do not have very good finance background then a lot could be lost in the translation when quants try to explain how those models work. What quants will usually do is to use some tools to do some prototyping first before they turn it over to a team of programmers. It is how I got into IT. I started to do some programming myself using a very high level programming language even though I have never taken a CS course in college. I found I really liked it and I made the switch from structuring to IT. </p>
<p>Now I manage an IT group that supports a business area in finance. Many programmers on my team are seasoned staff, most of them are good developers and are subject matter expert in various business areas (credit, trading, portfolio management). When an user says “I would like change how we view a client’s credit profile…” he won’t have to explain to the nth degree what he really needs. We would sometimes even tell our user what he/she wants may not make business sense. We do pay premium for programmers with business knowledge, because we find we could do more rapid development. If your son is able to combine CS and Finance, he’ll get a huge leg up against other applicants. It would also give him options as far as which direction he wants go. All in all, I think it’s worth the investment.</p>
<p>Thank you so much for the information and advice, and the research you all did, I will pass this on to him. Any ideas on whether it would be more useful to get the bachelors in computational finance (with additional courses in programming), or to get the dual major? If he spent an extra year or so getting a double major in CS…would it actually be more useful to spend that time getting a masters degree in computational finance instead? It sounds like you definitely need an advanced degree in this field. He will probably have 4 programming classes by the end of the year already. The undergraduate degree at this school (CMU) does look like a economics degree that is extremely heavy in math. I’m glad to know that this is a field that could lead to the opportunity of a secure job, it does help the pain of the monthly tuition bill go down easier (we went through his college fund in one month)!</p>
<p>I think that that major is sometimes called Financial Engineering or similar. </p>
<p>My nephew has a BS/MS in this from Columbia/Stanford and is making big bucks on wall street.</p>
<p>I think it depends what he would like to go into - programming or finance. I am going to advise for him to get a job after college, work for a few years to see what he likes to do before he gets a more advanced degree. A good friend of mine did programming, structuring, trading, then decided to go back to school to get a PhD in Finance from Berkeley. She did that after working for 5-7 years.</p>
<p>Thanks alot for the excellent advice, I passed it on!</p>