This program offers an efficient, practice-oriented track to prepare students for quantitative careers in the financial industry, including banks, insurance companies, and investment and securities firms. The program gives students a solid background and sufficient breadth in the mathematical and statistical foundations needed to understand the cutting edge techniques of today and to keep up with future developments in this rapidly evolving area over the span of their careers. It also equips students with expertise in quantitative financial modeling and the computational methods and skills that are used to implement the models. The mathematical knowledge is complemented by studies in financial management, information technology and/or computer science.
The bridge from the academic environment to the professional workplace is provided by a professional master’s project that involves the solution of a concrete, real-world problem directly originating in the financial industry. Students are encouraged to complete summer internships at financial firms. The department may help students to find suitable financial internships through the industrial connections of faculty affiliated with the Center for Industrial Mathematics and Statistics. Graduates of the program are expected to start or advance their professional careers in such areas as financial product development and pricing, risk management, investment decision support and portfolio management.
Degree Requirements
The master’s program in Financial Mathematics requires a minimum of 30 credit-hours of coursework. Additional credit from coursework may be required by the department depending on the student’s background. The curriculum consists of the following components:
1. 6 credits from required foundation courses:
2. 12 credits from core financial mathematics courses:
3. 3 credits chosen from Mathematical Sciences graduate courses MA 502-590.
B.S./M.S. students can count undergraduate courses MA 4213 Risk Theory, MA 4214 Survival Models, MA 4235 Mathematical Optimization, MA 4237 Probabilistic Methods in Operations Research, MA 4451 Boundary Value Problems, MA 4473 Partial Differential Equations, MA 4632 Probability and Mathematical Statistics II towards electives.
6 credit block in one of the following complementary areas outside of the Mathematical Sciences Department: Financial Management, Information Technology, or Computer Science.
Students with a degree or substantial work experience in one of the above complementary areas can substitute them with other courses subject to prior approval by the graduate committee
B.S./M.S. students can count suitable undergraduate courses towards the complementary area requirement according the number of credits of the corresponding graduate courses
2 of the complementary area credits can be earned by taking MA 579 Financial Programming Workshop
Capstone Project, which may be satisfied by one of the following options:
- A three to six credit master’s project.
- A three credit master’s practicum.
- A three credit capstone course in financial mathematics.
The master’s project consists of a creative application of mathematics to a real-world problem originating in the financial industry. It focuses on problem definition and solution using mathematical tools. The master’s practicum requires a student to demonstrate the integration of advanced mathematical concepts and methods into professional practice. This could be done through an approved summer internship in industry or an applied research laboratory. The capstone course in financial mathematics can be chosen from MA 572, MA 573, MA 574, or MA 575 and will be an enhanced version of the course with extra work assigned. Prior to the start of the capstone course, a student seeking to use the course to satisfy the requirement must declare this intention to the professor of the course.