Hello I’ll be attending Oxford starting next year as an Economics and Management major, but before I do I would ask you some questions about graduate school.
Before applying I wanted to study just pure economics and then get an MBA, but since I will be studying economics and management as an Undergrad, I want to study something like industrial/financial engineering.
Now I heard Princeton’s ORFE program is excellent for both undergrad and grad. Will it be wise to study econ&management and then study financial engineering as a grad? Or should I just get an MBA? And is it possible to get into an graduate engineering school such as Princeton’s after getting an undergrad economics degree? Thank you in advance
Well, um, congratulations- but how do you know that you will be at Oxford? In June you were thinking of applying, interviews just concluded and offers aren’t out yet, so…?
Anyway, I would suggest that this is not something to try and figure out for at least a year. Get a year of studying under the belt. Do a summer internship in the City. You will have so much more useful information about what is interesting to you.
It’s a little premature to start thinking about specific graduate programs when you’re not even in college yet. You may change your mind about what you want to pursue or solidify your ideas more once you are in college. We can’t tell you whether you should study financial engineering or get an MBA; both are viable plans, but which one is best is really going to be up to you and your career plans and preferences.
A quick look at the ORFE MSE program reveals that
Princeton regards is ORFE department as geared towards preparing people whose ultimate goal is to get a PhD. The MSE is therefore research-based, with the requirement of a thesis. Princeton says their admission rate is very low, and the most successful students are the ones with research plans who contact a professor ahead of time for admission. While you can certainly do that, it seems like your goal is more professional preparation for working in the field of OR or FE, so this may not be the best-suited program for your needs.
Students from all kinds of majors and backgrounds do the MSE at Princeton. As long as you have the prerequisites, you can major in economics. You just need to check what those prerequisites are - likely heavy math. Some computer science classes (probably programming) would also be useful to you.