Financial Engineering Major? Forum

[columbia2009]

Hi guys, I'm new here and I have been wondering about my major. I'm currently at Columbia University SEAS and I was wondering if a Financial Engineering major (Operations Research ) would hurt law school admissions. I also plan on a minor in economics.

I have been reading this forum and I keep reading that law school admissions officers look down upon "pre-professional" majors.

Could someone give me some advice?

More Info:
http://www.ieor.columbia.edu/pages/unde ... index.html

OR: Financial Engineering

Financial Engineering (FE) is a multidisciplinary field integrating financial theory with economics, methods of engineering, tools of mathematics and practice of programming. The concentration is designed to provide training in the application of engineering methodologies and quantitative methods to finance. Students graduating with this concentration are prepared to enter careers in securities, banking, financial management, consulting industries, quantitative roles in corporate treasury, and finance departments of general manufacturing and service firms.

Students who are interested in pursuing the rigorous concentration in Financial Engineering must demonstrate consistent strength in calculus, computer programming, linear algebra, ordinary differential equations, probability, and statistics. Applications to the concentration will be accepted during the sophomore year; students will receive the departmental decision by the summer following the end of the sophomore year. Students may apply online. There is no cap in the number of students accepted into the program.

Please note that in order to be officially considered for the Financial Engineering concentration, we require that you be in good academic and conduct standing with the University. By submitting the application form, you are indicating that you understand this. In addition, your submission provides consent to the Office of Judicial Affairs to release information pertaining to your disciplinary/conduct history to our office.

Curriculum

Undergraduates are strongly recommended to follow the sequence of courses as outlined in the SEAS Bulletin. The prerequisites for this program are courses equivalent to those listed in the first- and second-year program. We encourage all students to take ECON W1105, ECON W2261, COMS W1004/W1007 (JAVA), Data Structures (JAVA), SIEO W3658, STAT W3559, Linear Algebra, Ordinary Differential Equations, and a pre-professional elective during their first two years.OR:FE majors are required to complete a two-course Technical concentration.

If a required technical course is not available, it must be replaced by a technical elective with the written approval of a faculty adviser.

[pu_golf88]

They'd probably be wondering wtf financial engineering is lol. I'm guessing Columbia has pretty much the same thing we have, but we it's called the School of Interdisciplinary Engineering. I know you can like "create" your own engineering, like they talked about a few people doing patent law engineering.

I'm looking forward to hear what people say.

[columbia2009]

Columbia has a masters program in Financial Engineering.

I edited the first post with more information.

[IAFG]

.

[Leeroy Jenkins]

Financial Engineering isn't a pre-professional major.

[columbia2009]

Financial Engineering isn't a pre-professional major.

I feel a little bit better.

[Leeroy Jenkins]

Financial Engineering isn't a pre-professional major.

I feel a little bit better.

np.

pre-professional by law school admissions committee generally means 'pre-law' or 'pre-med' (yea you can major in these at some places).

[ScaredWorkedBored]

If you actually have "pre-law" or "pre-med" on your transcript/degree as your MAJOR, you're probably not getting into a good school - and you probably didn't go to one either. There is no such thing as a "pre-law" and pre-meds get Biology or Chemistry majors. The required pre-med courses are not enough to constitute a major.

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Re: Financial Engineering

This is in extreme disrepute right now, in case you have been living under a rock for the last two years. It also makes it look like you are going to law school because Wall Street blew up. Your narrative is going to matter a lot.

[Leeroy Jenkins]

It also makes it look like you are going to law school because Wall Street blew up. Your narrative is going to matter a lot.

[columbia2009]

So would it be better for me to major in economics? and how would a 3.8 and a 175 affect HYS?

[secretmanofagent]

Do you learn to engineer bridges of money or? Since it's not an ABET accredited program, the amount that the degree transfers over is minimal (it sounds like it's a degree for coders of Wall Street programs, which is a niche as well). Granted, neither is Berkeley (which is at their business school), but it really sounds like it's pushing the "Engineering" term. I had never heard of it till you mentioned it, and I'm an Electrical Engineer. I agree with ScaredWorkedBored, I would be thorough about how this degree either brought you to law school, brings you closer to it, or how it will be applied.

[Leeroy Jenkins]

So would it be better for me to major in economics? and how would a 3.8 and a 175 affect HYS?

So what year are you?

good luck transfering from SEAS to CC. Or rather, have fun on the 4-1 program, because you have about a 0.01% of transferring into CC to major in econ.

[englawyer]

i was once upon a time considering a MS in financial engineering..

it is not a degree for coding; the programs advertise themselves as 1/3 math, 1/3 finance, and 1/3 computer science. In practice, you will usually have to write some prototype code but you will usually work with CS people to write the actual code. You can start in jobs called "Quantitative Associate" etc which can eventually graduate to Quantitative Portfolio Management/Trading, developing models for trading strategies/optimal portfolios/hedging.

Basically, they use math to make tons of money for banks (and themselves). Who knows ITE though...these people were responsible for major parts of the real estate bubble (OTC derivatives, structuring, etc).

[columbia2009]

yikes. this thread is scaring me. So I made a bad choice in my major?

[Leeroy Jenkins]

yikes. this thread is scaring me. So I made a bad choice in my major?

No. Why do you want to go to law school? If you can answer the question you can get into law school.

[awesomepossum]

it's probably fine.

I went to SEAS for electrical although I took some IEOR classes to pad my GPA.

Do financial engineering majors say OR or do they say "financial engineering" on the transcript?

[Leeroy Jenkins]

lol at least 3 seas students in this thread

[columbia2009]

lol at least 3 seas students in this thread

That is pretty interesting. Though... I don't know why it is so hard to transfer from seas to cc...

[Aeroplane]

I majored in ORIE (Operations Research & Industrial Engineering) at Cornell, and did a Master's in Operations Research (by another name though). I don't think it hurt me with schools at all, and helped mitigate my low-ish GPA. See cycle info & link to LSN in profile.

[Leeroy Jenkins]

That is pretty interesting. Though... I don't know why it is so hard to transfer from seas to cc...

Unless you suddenly have a desire to study history or english, the transfer admissions is very unlikely to grant you a transfer. They have other students from other colleges applying to transfer, and you would be taking their spot.

Anecdotally, I had two friends trying to transfer, one went from Applied Physics to Physics. In his PS he specifically delineated the differences between the two departments and gave reasoning why it was necessary for him to transfer to CC. My other friend tried to go from IEOR to econ. From hearsay, it seems like all IEOR -> econ transfers are regularly denied, probably because they all just want to make themselves more attractive to Wall Street and not out of some Ivory Tower idealism. The admins are probably well attuned to bullshit, so trying to pull a fast one of them is unlikely to work.

OTOH, if there is one CC student trying to transfer into SEAS for every SEAS student trying to get into CC, the transfer admissions won't care. this is generally not the case.

[columbia2009]

That is pretty interesting. Though... I don't know why it is so hard to transfer from seas to cc...

Unless you suddenly have a desire to study history or english, the transfer admissions is very unlikely to grant you a transfer. They have other students from other colleges applying to transfer, and you would be taking their spot.

Anecdotally, I had two friends trying to transfer, one went from Applied Physics to Physics. In his PS he specifically delineated the differences between the two departments and gave reasoning why it was necessary for him to transfer to CC. My other friend tried to go from IEOR to econ. From hearsay, it seems like all IEOR -> econ transfers are regularly denied, probably because they all just want to make themselves more attractive to Wall Street and not out of some Ivory Tower idealism. The admins are probably well attuned to bullshit, so trying to pull a fast one of them is unlikely to work.

OTOH, if there is one CC student trying to transfer into SEAS for every SEAS student trying to get into CC, the transfer admissions won't care. this is generally not the case.

Wait. So you're saying that transferring into SEAS is easier than transferring into CC?

[rayiner]

So would it be better for me to major in economics? and how would a 3.8 and a 175 affect HYS?

So what year are you?

good luck transfering from SEAS to CC. Or rather, have fun on the 4-1 program, because you have about a 0.01% of transferring into CC to major in econ.

is Columbia SEAS that much easier to get into than Columbia College? And why didn't I apply after HS?

[Leeroy Jenkins]

you take the LSAT yet?

[Leeroy Jenkins]

is Columbia SEAS that much easier to get into than Columbia College? And why didn't I apply after HS?

6 years ago? probably

[rayiner]

is Columbia SEAS that much easier to get into than Columbia College? And why didn't I apply after HS?

6 years ago? probably

7.