<p>I was wondering what the top schools are for an undergraduate degree in Operations Research. Also, another question: do any schools besides Princeton offer an undergrad degree in Financial Engineering? Thanks.</p>
<p>From being a lurker here, I know the CC forum is generally very helpful. Nobody has any ideas?</p>
<p>Well if you're desperate, here's some half-baked, not terribly informed ideas:</p>
<p>1) Cornell has had an OR department for at least 33 years. I can't say for a fact that it's a "top school" but I'd guess it's up there.</p>
<p>2) Some top grad financial engineering programs are at: Boston University, U wisconsin, carnegie Mellon. Some of this might filter down to undergrad. I bet Carnegie-Mellon has some stuff here.</p>
<p>Thanks for your thoughts monydad. Anyone else?</p>
<p>There are not many schools that offer OR, so they would all be "tops". My alma mater (Cornell), combines OR and Industrial Engineering into the same major. There's also CMU, Syracuse, Princeton, Berkley, Columbia, and the service academies. MIT, famous in the early years of OR, has the Operations Research Center--a graduate department--but no undergrad major.</p>
<p>Lots of schools don't list their OR departments prominently. George Washington has changed the name of their OR department to systems engineering--same profs, different name. </p>
<p>But, looking for a "top" program is a like looking for "cold" ice cream. The programs are so few and far between you would surely find yourself in a good program whereever you find one.</p>
<p>Interesting, redbeard; I myself didn't realize these programs were so rare.</p>
<p>By coinicidence, the two engineering schools I am most familiar with are both on your list, and obviously they have these programs. So I just assumed many places do.</p>
<p>Learned something.</p>
<p>Thanks redbeard, a lot of the schools you mentioned are the ones I am looking at. Like monydad I also believed more schools would offer it since I thought it is a fairly established field. At least it has been around since WWII, correct?</p>
<p>OR began in WWII. The "operations" that we were researching was the best way to protect a convoy from attack by U-boats. We chanced upon the first "measure of effectiveness" paradox. We noted that it was most important to measure the amount of tonnage that got through, and not the number of U-boats sunk. </p>
<p>It was written up in a book by Morse and Kimball, two mathematics professors (at MIT, I believe). There was much more on naval operations research. A lot of this old history is available at the Military Operations Research Society's website. </p>
<p>OR is fairly established, but the name has waxed and waned in popularity. I think it's back--at least in my neighborhood of the technoverse. Systems engineering is its kissing cousin, as I noted. There are probably twice as many Systems Engineering programs.</p>
<p>OR info from my dad </p>
<hr>
<p>Am reposting... my original post seems to be lost. My dad has a guy with a Phd in OR working for him. The guy has a masters in Applied Stat. His undergrad is applied math. My dad says he is the best hire he ever made. A very specialized generalist. They guy got his Phd from Georgia Tech and is one of the reasons I've applied there. He is pretty amazing.</p>
<p>Most of the work he does is in disease modeling and economics with considerable forecasting to top it off. Some links to his work follow. Hope this helps you make a decision. Consider this one vote for Georgia Tech</p>
<p>Links
<a href="http://archive.naccho.org/documents/2005-JAMA.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://archive.naccho.org/documents/2005-JAMA.pdf</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/518444%5B/url%5D">http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/518444</a></p>
<p>LInk to GAtech <a href="http://www.isye.gatech.edu/or/%5B/url%5D">http://www.isye.gatech.edu/or/</a></p>
<p>There are several ways to try to break into "Operations Research". I know that at some schools, you can earn a B.S. in Mathematics with an emphsis in Operations Research (I know that's an option at Penn State).</p>
<p>But my uninformed opinion would be that the best way to go about this would be to major in Industrial Engineering. I'd look at big-name Industrial Engineering Schools. I know MIT's is top notch (as it is in all things engineering). I also know that at Penn State, it's top-ranked Engineering program is Industrial. I believe U.S. News currently has it at #4 in the nation.</p>
<p>I'll throw in a link for Case.</p>
<p>"The department has a long history as a center of education and scholarship in operations and granted the world's first doctorate in Operations Research."</p>
<p>Investigate some of the links to see the backgrounds of grad students. Offers a "certificate in OR" at the grad level. Is not admitting new students to the OR PhD program in 2006; don't know what's up with that, but you can e-mail them and ask.</p>
<p>
[quote]
MIT, famous in the early years of OR, has the Operations Research Center--a graduate department--but no undergrad major.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>That's not quite true. As far as undergrad goes, MIT offers Operations Research as a Concentration within the Sloan Management Science undergrad program. </p>
<p>This makes sense as the MIT Operations Research Center is itself a sub-branch of the Sloan School. People who get their SM or PhD from the ORC get a Course 15 degree, and Course 15 is the designation given to Sloan graduates.</p>
<p>"The department has a long history as a center of education and scholarship in operations and granted the world's first doctorate in Operations Research."
I looked at case for this exact same program and yeah if you want to get your phd or masters in financial engineering its perfect. However, you cant seem to do much in the undergraduate. I wanted to maybe major or minor in finance and applied math but at Case it would be harder because I would end up taking alot of classes I woould never need. I believe Cornell is much better much more oriented towards the undergraduate. Besides that I wanted to know if anyone in here is actually currently majoring in financial engineering because I have alot of questions?</p>
<p>Here's a grad school ranking for financial engineering; someone posted it last year.</p>
<p>I haven't taken a degree program in it, but I've worked closely with practitioners for a period and I know something, FWIW. Not about the schools though.</p>
<p>I'm actually unclear as to the differences and overlaps between FE and OR. They seem to be similar when I look at descriptions but I'd like some insight from you guys.</p>
<p>I am also a bit confuse about FE and OR, because every school websites I look at I can only find BS/BA (undergrad) degree in OR, but I haven't find any school that specifically says BS/BA(undergrad) in FE. So, can anyone plz give me names of any schools that offers undergrad FE? not OR? Is FE=OR?
I kind of know that FE and OR are similar, but I would rather like to have FE on my transcript and on my graduation certificate, so that I can call my self an "Engineer".</p>
<p>thanks,</p>
<p>I defer to redbeard or others for a proper description of OR. </p>
<p>But from what I've seen of it:</p>
<p>OR applies various mathematical techniques to solving various problems that come up in various business contexts. Many classic applications are in manufacturing and factory type businesses. For example a company may have to forecast demand for its products by month/day, on a probabilistic basis. Based on this forecast, it might want to come up with an optimal scheduling plan for materials procurement and workforce employment. Then come up with optimal inventory control and storage procedures to meet anticipated demand. There are various mathematical techniques that come to bear to model and solve problems of this nature. This of course is but one example. It is a broad field with many applications to many types of industries.</p>
<p>I would imagine there are OR types involved at the airlines, figuring out how best to deploy their airplanes, staff, routes, etc, to maximize profitability and best meet demand.</p>
<p>Financial Engineering is a newer discipline borne out of a completely different source: financial option pricing and the financial derivatives markets. Its developers and practitioners came from the field of finance and financial economics. Their applications are to one specific industry: finance. The main purpose is valuation of derivative securities, financial options, hedging strategies and financial asset and liability mangement. An important application is on trading floors, managing a firm's net exposure to particular financial events (so-called "Value at Risk") .</p>
<p>Some of the techniques that are utilized in OR also have applicability in financial engineering, but many of them are different. The practitioners of these two disciplines have largely been independent of each other.</p>
<p>The only undergrad FE program I've heard about is at Princeton. I personally don't think it's an appropriate undergrad major for most people; a course or two might be interesting though. It's a highly specialized field.</p>
<p>I think all that is accurate, and captures the gist of this changing landscape. OR has traditionally been broken down into deterministic methods of optimization and stochastic methods (which focus on reducing risk). </p>
<p>Academia in OR has a preference for 'closed form' solutions to problems. That usually means finding away to restate the problem as either a linear or a nonlinear optimization problem. There are closed-form solutions for that.</p>
<p>Over here on the other side of the campus wall, the real world confronts problems that often don't fit into elegant textbook examples. Thus, the real world has, for decades, used simulation techniques and other stochastic approaches. Monte Carlo simulations, for example, are often used in industry and government--and that's just a roll of the dice. </p>
<p>Academics look down on simulation. Companies pay us to simulate. You make the call. </p>
<p>Financial engineering is pretty spanking new. But, financial analysts are all about reducing risk. In order to do this, you need to be able to measure risk. That puts you square in the middle of the controversies and methodologies of Operations Research. So, in financial engineering, different faculties will focus on different approaches. Some will solve options pricing using statistical equations, which are formulated by econometricians Black and Scholes. </p>
<p>But, that was the story as of the late 90s. Much of this focuses on equilibrium economics. In reality, the OR world has begun to evaluate other methods of analyzing risk, probability, and partial evidence. The two rapidly maturing methods are Baysian statistics and computational agent-based systems (or complex adaptive systems). This is cutting edge OR, and the edge it cuts is in market dynamics--the primary focus of financial engineering. </p>
<p>The bottom line of all this goblydygook is this: different universties will adopt these new (mostly unproven) methods with different degrees of enthusiasm. Are the complexity theorists and the Bayesian AI types really the next 'quantum mechanics'? Or is this just another flash-in-the-pan? </p>
<p>One thing's for sure, there will be strong opinions among practitioners. You think the Sakky/AEHMO arguments are endless and unprovable, you haven't seen anything like these theorists going at it. </p>
<p>So, sure, there's lots of interesting research to be done in the field. Do a search on Amazon.com for "agent based systems", and you will find 475 different citations. If that stuff interests you, then you might be looking for one of the more advanced OR/Computational programs.</p>
<p>Penn state has an excellent program
<a href="http://www.ie.psu.edu/Academics/Undergraduate/Courses/CurriculumPlan2.htm%5B/url%5D">http://www.ie.psu.edu/Academics/Undergraduate/Courses/CurriculumPlan2.htm</a></p>
<p>How great is the demand in the job market after one gets a masters degree in financial engineering. Also, how great is the demand in the job market for o/r engineers, and what type of salaries would one be looking at for the two.</p>