Many moons since the last blog. And this is a good time for one too: after the summer course and before the fall term.
Summer was enjoyable with respect to both academics and broader life. The summer course contained the following modules in no particular order:
-financial and managerial accounting
-finance (corp fin, capital markets, international fin)
-managerial economics
-excel and visual basic
-C++
-SAS (statistical analysis software)
-linear algebra
-multivariable calculus
-ODEs and PDEs
-probability and statistics
-resume writing and mock interviews
-database management
-ethics
Most of these modules I found very useful: I needed to review C++, math [through ODEs], and statistics; I bolstered my VBA skills significantly; and learnt a little about PDEs and SAS.
I have a strong finance background so the finance/acct/econ sections were of little benefit to me, but the vast majority of students in class have strong technical/math backgrounds and little finance training, so I believe many of them found these sections beneficial and the C++ and math sections less so.
Extracurricular activities primarily comprised of partying, watching the Olympics, and playing sports. Far and away one of the greatest things about being back in school, and especially at a serious sports school like Michigan, is that any sport you want is available at your fingertips. Personally, I played soccer, badminton, and basketball weekly, pool now and then, golf once, and hit the gym several times a week. Living in Jersey and working in NYC, the height of my weekly physical activity oftentimes was catching the [goddam, accursed] NJT train.
This is one of several reasons I find Ann Arbor to be a very desirable breath of fresh air from NYC. Other reasons include environmental cleanliness and beauty, general affordability, and Midwestern niceness. Ann Arbor really is a great, and in my opinion, ideal place to study. But of course, for an MFE student who is looking for a job, the glaring downside is that relative to living in NYC, your opportunity to network is enormously curbed simply because the serious financial operations in the US are so concentrated in NYC.
Onto Fall. I substituted 2 math classes I have deemed I need for finance ones I don’t; the nice thing about the program is that it is quite flexible and there are a lot of elective courses to choose from. The Fall line-up:
1. Probability theory (most other students taking Options and Futures in Corporate Decision Making)
2. Boundary value problems for PDEs (most other students taking Capital Markets and Investment Strategy)
3. Stochastic analysis for finance
4. Statistical analysis of financial data
5. Fixed income securities and markets
I also have a tentative schedule for Winter 08 (they call the Jan-May term Winter instead of Spring; yes its technically more correct given the Michigan winter but it just peeves me) and Fall 09, so let me put that down so you have a representative curriculum (this blog is for you after all):
Winter 08:
1. Financial Engineering I
2. Advanced derivatives and risk management
3. Financial trading (7 week course)
4. Discrete stochastic processes
5. Statistical analysis of time series
6. Securitization (7 week course)
Between Winter and Fall is internship time.
Fall 09:
1. Financial Engineering II
2. Computational finance
3. Continuous optimization methods
4. Risk theory
I’m happy with this curriculum. Of course I will write more about these courses throughout the semester.
The other notable experience was going to the football season-opener. Football is a huge deal here. The atmosphere before the game is like spring break, except people have more clothes on. Leading up to the game there are just rivers of people flowing into the stadium. And they call it the big house for a reason: the stadium is gigantic; the second biggest in the country and supposedly the fourth biggest sports stadium in the world. And its supposedly almost always packed to capacity, so its great to watch games there. I’d much rather be playing though this will never happen.
Long post so will cut it off now. Till next time. Auf wiedersehen.
