Is Financial Engineering program for Me? In 5 minutes - YouTube

Hey guys, this is Kevin Yang again.

It has been more than 3 years since I posted the last video.

And recently I just came back to YouTube to look at the comments that people left.

First of all, I really want to thank all the viewers of mine, and those who left a comment

who really gave me inspirations to do further videos.

So thank you for all!

To answer the question of what kind of people does financial engineering master's program

really look for?

And if you are really looking to study into those programs, what kind of skills you should

have?

So first I want to make a disclaimer that I only attended one master's of financial

engineering program which is the program at UC Berkeley.

So this video doesn't cover the requirements for other programs.

And for this video I know I'm certainly not the best-looking Asian guy you can find, so

I'm just gonna not to show my face and gonna show you some slides.

Hopefully I can have more views and less dislikes.

So first of all you would have an undergraduate study.

If you want to consider a master's program you want to finish a four-year undergraduate

program preferably in some analytical subjects.

For example if you major statistics or mathematics or computer science, that will be a good plus.

But if you study something like economics, you want to make sure you have a strong analytical

background.

You want to take courses in advanced mathematics, for example not just in calculus but also

in for example partial differential equations, numerical analysis, and some linear algebra,

introduction to probability theory, to statistical modeling.

That's where you want to study, because in a financial engineering program, there is

a lot of math.

And the second thing you want to look for, is some programming backgrounds.

If you are a computer science major, that's good.

If you haven't majored in computer science you might consider taking a course in C++

for example.

Or you can take courses in Java, or Python, or any other programming languages that will

be a plus.

A questions a lot of people ask is should I take CFA?

My answers is CFA is not a necessity but it's definitely a plus.

So if you have a CFA level 1, 2, or even level 3, that's gonna be plus in your profile.

Especially for people who doesn't have a financial background, I thinking getting a CFA actually

shows them that you have an interest in finance.

You must have some kind of financial experiences.

By means of that I mean either you worked in finance before, that means you graduated

from undergraduate study, you worked in finance, you want to further that financial knowledge.

But if you haven't had any exposure in finance, I strongly recommend you to find a financial

internship, like an internship in a bank, in an asset management firm, in a trading

firm, or insurance company will be helpful.

Next is your GRE score.

So the thing is it's necessary to have a GRE or GMAT score.

So you wanna make sure that the mathematic score in your GRE exam is as high as possible.

I think it's almost imperative to have a full mark in your GRE analytical score.

In addition, for the foreigners whose native language isn't English you wanna make sure

you have a good English communication skill, because in my program there is actually an

interview, where they talk to you in English to see how well you can communicate.

Next is your recommendation letters, I recommend you have at least one recommendation letter

from a mathematics professor or a statistics professor that tells them that you have a

very good analytical skill.

Now for racial diversity, I know having said all those analytical stuff, people are saying,

you know, all the Asian people are very good at it.

I think it's true to some extent, which means you will have a lot of Chinese or Indian people

in financial engineering program.

So if you are racially under-represented, and add to the diversity, I think you may

have a plus.

But I can't say it for sure because I'm not the person making that decision.

Another one I want to emphasize is brain teasers.

So in an interview they may ask you some brain teasing questions.

For example, there're two people, one tells the truth, one always tells the lie.

How can you tell who is whom by just asking'em one question.

So that's an example of brain teaser you want to prepare.

There're actually some books on it I think it will be helpful (to read them).

Lastly for personality-wise, if you are interested in using complex models, use financial analysis,

to solve problems, you are very good.

If you are interesting in programming, use mathematics (you're) a very analytical guy, you're

good.

On the other hand, this program is by no means an academic program.

It is a professional program which means you ultimately gonna look for jobs.

Which means the environment can be a little bit competitive, so if you are like very academic

and wanna be a professor that's probably not the environment you are looking for.

You want to be competitive as well.

So in the end, if your passion is to use models to solve real world financial problems, and

if you want to understand what people can do using the power of financial engineering,

the goods and bads of it, and how it applies to the real world, then definitely go for

it.

So that summarizes my video, if you like it, click on subscribe below.

And I will have more videos post up for you in the future.

Thank you