<p>Michigan has one of the best IOE programs in the nation; If I recall, USNWR ranked it in the top two/three for both grad/undergrad. Recently, I have been attracted to it because of its strong ties to Financial Engineering / Mathmatics , invaluable if one is looking to do an MS in FE. Since Michigan is ranked so highly I assume that it would provide some of the best opportunities for an aspiring Financial Engineer / Quant , both in terms of big-firm recruitment and placement into a masters program for FE. One thing, though, that I know is that the IOE department is highly regarded for its contributions to Ergonomics , something I'm quite disinterested in. </p>
<p>Specifically, I was wondering how much this plays into its high ranking, and how, from someone who is strictly interested in Quantitative Finance / Financial Engineering standpoint, Michigan stacks up to other top IOE(FE) programs ( Columbia, Berkeley, Stanford, etc. ) for recruitment and grad placement.</p>
<p>I’m not sure about placement, but I do know that Michigan’s GRAD program in FE is not very good, relatively speaking – Michigan’s average starting salary is much lower than most of the (few) FE programs out there. This is not taking into account programs like Financial Math, Financial Economics, Quantitative Finance, etc. If I had to guess, I would say that Michigan undergrad does very well with placement, being as we have very strong math and Comp. Sci. programs. (You’ll obviously have to do well.) Don’t do IOE if you want to do FE for grad school. Double major in Math/Financial Math and Comp. Sci. It also would be beneficial to work for a year or two, but that is only a plus for FE programs, not a prerequisite like it is for MBA.</p>
<p>“Don’t do IOE if you want to do FE for grad school.”
Lol please stick to area you have a clue about. Operations research (the math modeling part of IOE), which encompasses stochastic calculus, linear/integer programming, calc based stats etc, is the foundation of FE. There is a reason the Michigan’s FE program is housed in IOE and more than half of the professors in Michigan’s FE program are also IOE professors</p>
<p>^Not saying it’s not sufficient, saying Math/Fin Math (particularly Fin Math, but you can take the essential Fin Math classes for your Pure Math electives) + CompSci is better. CompSci obviously… Fin Math requires much more rigorous stochastics and calc based stats, if that’s really the topic of your argument… And you don’t have to take any of that ergonomics bulls***. You’re the one who should get a clue</p>
<p>“Fin Math requires much more rigorous stochastics and calc based stats, if that’s really the topic of your argument”</p>
<p>That’s BS. Go through the financial math course descriptions. They barely touch stochastic process/continuous markov chains for undergrad courses and there are absolutely no IP/LP modeling courses. Most of the grad courses with these components are catered to insurance’s risk theory.
UM’s undergraduate financial math program is even more of a joke than IOE. </p>
<p>Ever wonder why Financial Engineering I and Financial Engineering II, the two actual financial engineering courses are named IOE 552 and IOE 553? Because financial engineering is a branch of operations research, which is a branch of IOE. Many schools, take columbia as example, actually call their program ORFE, because FE is part of OR. You are basically telling the guy interested in nuclear physics grad program not to do physics/nuclear engineering as undergrad, but instead do chemistry, because chemistry is the building bloc of nuclear physics, just like math and CS are the building bloc of FE.</p>
<p>And your ergonomics argument doesnt make any sense. So you are advocating OP to avoid one required ergonomics class (IOE 333+334lab) and instead take on all the stupid unnecessary LSA distribution requirements? Sure…</p>
<p>OP, you can either believe the guy from the IOE program who evaded all the ergonomics crap, been through some quant recruiting as an undergrad and got offers, working in a second BB S&T internship, sits one row behind the quants and talk to them daily or the econ major who is doing his first internship on the other side of the chinese wall.</p>
<p>I was only planning on doing Engineering if I went to Michigan. It always appeared that ioe is the most straight forward path to FE. </p>
<p>Though, the main question/concern I had in my original post is how the FE/OR side of the department compares to other top FE/OR programs like Columbia/Berkeley/Stanford for recruiting/placement, for someone not directly interested in Industrial Engineering as a whole but just for quant finance. From what I’ve gathered, at least, it is a top program for someone who is just interested in being a Quant, but I was just looking for re-affirmation.</p>
<p>As an aside, the only other serious option I’ve been considering was doing a mix of Economics + Applied Math + CS at Chicago, granted acceptance, and focusing more on an MS in Financial Mathematics - which seems extremely similar to an MS-FE degree. It appeared that universities have exclusively either an MS-FE program ( Michigan, Berkeley, Columbia ), or and MS-Fin. Math ( Stanford, Chicago, Princeton). I wasn’t sure, though, how these two paths would compare - Fin-Eng vs Fin-Math - for a quant, if they are basically the same thing under different names.</p>
<p>I’ve not only been through the financial math course descriptions, I’ve taken a number of the courses to fill my electives. They BARELY TOUCH ON STOCHASTIC PROCESSES/CONTINUOUS MARKOV CHAINS??? Sorry, you’re out of your mind. 526 is not only split ~50/50 between discrete and continuous time processes, it’s extremely difficult (the course description is very watered down, even inaccurate. General advice: course descriptions are a good guide, but for a lot of them, it’s important that you do not make a judgment unless you’ve spoken with the professor about to teach it, or at least looked at the syllabus). I’ve known multiple very intelligent people who’ve dropped that course because they couldn’t cut it. (Can’t say I can comment on lp.) Which brings me to my next point: you are confusing financial math with actuarial math. The financial math major is quite difficult on the whole – certainly more difficult than IOE, LMAO. That comment you made is just outright false. I have a handful of friends in IOE, including two roommates. I’ve seen the courses they take. I help them with their courses. The courses I’ve taken or am going to take/have sat in on that are fin math required are far more difficult than the required IOE courses (see: Stats 426, Math 451, Math 525, Math 526). Granted, the beginning of the fin math track (the one that is shared between it and actuarial math) isn’t terribly hard on the whole. But after they diverge, it becomes much harder. It’s the actuarial kids who take that risk/insurance bulls***. Notice, I haven’t even brought up CompSci here as the second major which I advised. That would essentially end the argument (but I would still definitely rather do Fin Math alone than IOE… you still have to learn intro. C++ for Fin Math which will at least set you up to learn further programming when you enter FE).</p>
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<p>No, I never wondered, I’ve known. I looked into the FE track in a fair amount of depth before I decided on banking (for the foreseeable future). Are those courses part of the IOE undergraduate major? No.</p>
<p>Sorry, the Fin Math stochastics/probability-based stats run a train on the IOE equivalent.</p>
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<p>So narrow-minded. The LSA distribution is great. I’m quite glad I was able to fit in philosophy, polisci, pysch, history, anthro, and various science courses while still being able to double major, essentially get a finance/accounting minor, and be set up to graduate a semester early. To each his own.</p>
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<p>Please elaborate on discussions you have had with your quants. I will respond with discussions I’ve had with professors and FE admissions officers.</p>
<p>“The econ major who is doing his first internship on the other side of the chinese wall.” Let me rephrase that for you: “The Math + Econ major who is far more capable of moving on to a quantitative graduate degree than the vast majority (I’ll refrain from saying all) of IOE kids, who happened to decide he wants to try out banking for a couple of years.”</p>
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<p>haha</p>
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<p>FE and grad FM are very similar – FE is more applied, involves more programming, and is shorter/easier. In turn, FM is more theoretical, involves less programming, and is longer/harder. Trust me OP, you will be much better off combining CompSci with Math/Applied Math/Fin Math wherever you go to undergrad as opposed to IOE.</p>
<p>“Trust me OP, you will be much better off combining CompSci with Math/Applied Math/Fin Math wherever you go to undergrad as opposed to IOE.”</p>
<p>Hmm. I always thought IOE was advantageous because of firm recruitment in the college of engineering. I’m not sure how LSA recruitment is, but a lot of my friends at COE told me they chose it partly because of the recruitment.</p>
<p>Well, the topic of this conversation was which track was better to get into a FE program. FE programs do not require work experience first, so from a pure academic perspective, FM + CS is better than IOE. Either way, several proprietary trading firms (prop shops) recruit at LSA and, in general, a prop shop would much rather have a FM + CS major than an IOE major.</p>
<p>" Well, the topic of this conversation was which track was better to get into a FE program. FE programs do not require work experience first, so from a pure academic perspective, FM + CS is better than IOE. Either way, several proprietary trading firms (prop shops) recruit at LSA and, in general, a prop shop would much rather have a FM + CS major than an IOE major.</p>
<p>And then there’s Q’s comment^ "</p>
<p>See, I would like to believe that Applied Math + CS would have better placement into an FE program, but just looking at facts & figures it seems that Engineering is both the most common and accepted route.</p>
<p>40% of those in the program were Engineers,
vs
15% Math Majors, 4% Computer Science Majors, 12% Dual Majors ; Still about 10% less than Engineering Majors even if we combine all of them.</p>
<p>^Also notice the average age at enrollment is 27, by which time your major is less important. Especially considering that the program isn’t very big, and that far more people major in Engineering than Math, I don’t think that implies at all that Engineering is better than Math.</p>
<p>So? That could very well mean more engineers are interested in FE. The fact of the matter is Math and CS skills will prepare you better for the material in FE.</p>
<p>Let’s assume that Math + CS was a better option for becoming a Quant. Then why would someone, take bearcats for example, go through IOE to do the same thing. I don’t know what other programs he got into, but I would think someone who is in Engineering had other collegiate options, and chose to do IOE for a distinct reason.
I don’t see the point for going through the hassle of getting a double major when there is a program that seems to specifically cater to Fin.Eng. IOE aka FE-OR.</p>
<p>If there is some distinct advantage to doing a double major (Math+CS) it just has not become apparent to me yet.</p>
<p>On the contrary. He’s been kicking himself all over this forum for choosing his college path. The distinct advantage is the subject matter you learn. I advise you speak to FE admissions officers / professors. They won’t be hard to reach out to when you get here. You don’t have to declare right away.</p>