<p>Hi, what do you guys know about Financial Engineering for undergrad? Exactly what kind of career will it lead to? Colleges love to say how it is very versatile, but not its true applications (both intended and possible). Also, is the programming and CS really heavy, or is it very basic? If you were wondering, few colleges offer FE, but among them are Princeton, Columbia, and MIT.</p>
<p>If you’re considering financial engineering, you’re more likely to work on asset management, risk management, derivatives pricing and trading, fixed income analytics and other areas that demand an intense quantitative background, as opposed to corporate finance and m&a and other traditional ib departments.</p>
<p>Thanks. Anyone else have some insight on the coursework itself?</p>
<p>Don’t do it if you have even the slightest doubt in your mathematical ability. Lots of probability, stat, and calculus.</p>
<p>CMU and MIT have the best undergrad financial engineering programs in the country, and I’d say Columbia takes a very very close second.</p>
<p>Neither CMU nor MIT has an undergrad degree in financial engineering. The only top school to have an undergrad concentration, within OR, is Columbia. A student can also do an FE track within the OR program at Princeton.</p>
<p>[Bachelor</a> of Science in Computation Finance](<a href=“http://www.math.cmu.edu/~bscf/]Bachelor”>Bachelor of Science in Computation Finance) </p>
<p>[SB</a> in Management Science - MIT Sloan School of Management Undergraduate Program](<a href=“http://mitsloan.mit.edu/undergrad/sb-managesci.php]SB”>http://mitsloan.mit.edu/undergrad/sb-managesci.php)
Yes, this isn’t financial engineering, but with all the heavy math and statistics you’d be doing at MIT anyway you’d be essentially getting one of the most quantitative business curricula out there. Financial engineering in all but name.</p>
<p>Research before you post por favor.</p>
<p>Princeton offers an undergraduate degree in Financial Engineering as well.</p>
<p>AvAsian, I offer you a handsome apology. Obviously, I overlooked the CMU undergrad program. MIT Sloan also can be built as an FE program. I am beating myself!! Thanks for pointing it out.</p>
<p>what about cornell ORIE ?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>On what basis? I ask because I am at Princeton, and I have not heard of ORFE leaving graduates anything other than prepared. The job placement seems to indicate trust in the skill set provided by the major.</p>
<p>CMU, MIT, Princeton, and Columbia all have undergraduate incarnations of their amazing MFE programs so I’ll have to amend my previous statement. I’m sure other colleges have great FE programs at the undergrad level (UIUC,Cornell, etc) but iirc these four have well established programs at the graduate level that somewhat augment the reputation of their undergrad counterparts.</p>
<p>[Undergraduate</a> Program | Operations Research and Financial Engineering](<a href=“http://orfe.princeton.edu/undergraduate]Undergraduate”>Undergraduate Program | Operations Research & Financial Engineering)</p>
<p>does an MFE help if you want to go into equity trading?</p>
<p>Where can I go to get the education and experience to engineer a better scam than Madoff’s Ponzi Scheme?</p>
<p>Is there a reason you want to do equity trading in particular? Are you talking derivatives/options? An MFE is particularly good if you’re going into the derivatives side.</p>
<p>I’ll be honest here - i don’t know much about finance at all, but from the few conversations I’ve had with friends about it, trading in general seems to be extremely meritocratic. Also, I have this dream of retiring at 40 or at least, being a good enough personal investor to make a comfortable life from investing alone. All this does sound dumb. But if I want to get good at personal investing, how do I go about it if I don’t spend several years roughing it out in equity trading?</p>
<p>I know I probably have several terrible misconceptions in the paragraph above - I hope you can educate me.</p>
<p>^ How old are you?</p>
<p>You know how MOST people make a little money through investing. They start off with a LOT of money (and end up with a little).</p>
<p>If you want to retire when you’re 40 and have a sizable and stable source of income afterwards, you should consider government work. I know too many retired police officers/troopers that are getting $130+k/year even if they didn’t promote just in pensions (multiple pensions) and probably much more if they did promote a lot throughout their career.</p>
<p>With investing, all you need is 1 Bernie Madoff to touch your “monies” and you’re done.</p>
<p>Financial engineering of course takes some elite math and creative thinking. It also makes you the most uninteresting person at a party since no one will know what you’re talking about. If you’re doing FE, throw in some liberal arts minor or major. It’s your undergraduate education for God’s sake.</p>
<p>screwitlah…do yourself a favor and crush that dream of retiring at 40. Thinking about retiring before you’ve even put in the back breaking work required to be successful is indicative of epic failure in the future.</p>
<p>Investing and trading are also two different things. Investors do trades, but traders don’t invest. If you can’t beat them, join them. The best way to go about getting good at personal investing is to emulate other successful investors, but not blindly. If you’re working with a small amount of capital, your strategy will be different than a millionaire’s.</p>
<p>I see. Haha, this has just been a little pipe dream of mine - my internships have made me realize that even if you like your job, it still doesn’t beat staying home or travelling or hanging out with people. I do, however, want to do some personal investing, and my perhaps incorrect impression was that traders could retire early because they had become really good at stocks and markets and would make fantastic personal investors. How should I go about learning the ropes of personal investing? On average, how much does it supplement your income?</p>
<p>Well not much out there will beat traveling and enjoying the world, but not many people can afford to do that because of time or money constraints.</p>
<p>Doing trading won’t make you good at investing. For example, intraday equities traders book profits in a very short period of time. If you followed their trading strategies for investing, commission fees would wreck your returns. Even good traders lose money. Good investors never lose money. That’s the #1 rule. Don’t lose money.</p>
<p>Just read books, there’s no better way to learn.</p>
<p>Supplement to your income will be determined by how much you’ve invested and where. If you bought $1,000,000 worth of bonds at par with a 5% coupon. You’ll receive $50,000 a year. But that’s looking at it too simply.</p>
<p>To supplement main income, investors look at T-bills, notes, bonds. Corporate and Municipal Bonds. Preferred stock. Healthy large cap stocks with decent dividends. Real estate investment trusts that pay fat dividends. Etc etc etc.</p>