Academics

Since its founding, Carnegie Mellon University has emphasized cross-disciplinary research and education. In this innovative tradition, the MSCF program was formed in 1994 as the interdisciplinary collaboration of the Department of Statistics in the Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences, the Heinz College School of Information Systems and Management, the Mathematical Sciences Department in the Mellon College of Science and the Tepper School of Business. The participation of four departments enables the program to shift emphasis as the needs of the industry change.

MSCF’s highly-integrated, interdisciplinary curriculum is made possible by this joint venture and is the key to our success. Programs “owned” by business schools can be strong on financial markets but pay less attention to the mathematical modeling. Conversely, programs “owned” by math departments are often highly theoretical and less focused on “real world” applicability. Our curriculum is well-balanced between theory and practice. Programming is deeply embedded into our curriculum, an important skill in today’s increasingly technical financial markets.

We break our three-semester program into six, seven-week long “mini” semesters. Courses focus on the quantitative finance career paths of interest to our students: in trading, financial modeling, quantitative portfolio management and risk management.

While students are permitted a degree of specialization in the last two mini-semesters through their choice of electives, the program is largely fixed with each set of courses preparing the groundwork for the next, more advanced, set. With all our students taking the same courses, recruiters value our students’ consistent ability to meet the analytical and technical challenges and opportunities facing the industry.