maths in the finance major at UNSW (2 Viewers)

[Shadowdude]

M8, Maths = a lot of algebra, calculus and in general, understanding involved, as well as lots of computational questions.

Finance actually requires you to understand concepts, memorize formulae and occasionally apply maths in some of the questions. Do not ever think that learning finance at uni is easy - the questions will literally wreck you, especially if they are multiple choice. FINS1613 in 2nd sem -> you get multiple choice questions that are A, B, C, A and B, B and C, A and C, all of the above, none of the above. There is only one correct option and GG rekt if you got it wrong.

IMO I feel as if finance requires very good comprehension and decision making (especially in MCQs) compared to mathematics. The use of mathematics isn't as great in finance, but that's only a part of the situation.

But yeah, basically maths and finance are two different skill sets. If one wants to do maths, just do maths, imo.

The questions should be irrelevant, it's the content - what we're actually learning that is important. And as it stands, the concepts in finance are easy to learn.

There's a reason why Jane Street - a financial trading firm - hires maths students, and seeks them out. If they don't know any finance? Doesn't matter, they have weekly classes to get their workers up to scratch with what they need to know. Why? Because that stuff is easy compared to the stuff they've already learned.

 

[RishBonjour99]

Maths courses are a lot harder - in general - than finance courses. That's the point I was trying to make.

The maths that nerd posted one page or so ago? That's week 1 stuff in a second year linear models course. Trebla's integration? That's a bit more difficult but nothing extremely so.


Plus, "Plenty of kids pull 95+s in maths units"? This isn't HSC time at James Ruse, this is uni - you'll find that about 2-3% of the entire cohort will get 95+ in any unit at most.

And of course the top of the cohort will be brilliant students, but to classify everyone who doesn't get 95+ as "pretty sub-par" is extremely elitist and very ignorant.

Maths is not harder. You are missing the point. Its not about 'look at the material we are covering' and 'look at how complex everything looks' - obviously Adv Maths questions will look complex to someone who doesn't do the degree - but it definitely is not beyond the capacity of most people doing well in Finance. The level of competition and just general aptitude of people in finance (I can only speak for usyd) is probably higher compared to an undergrad Adv maths degree - that makes it a more difficult. Fairly confident if the top 10 kids in my usyd finc cohort were doing maths - they would still be around the top. Adv Maths is not beyond the intellectual capacity of someone doing well in finc - yet this is the vibe that comes off adv maths/engo kids.

There are plenty of smart kids who literally put so many hours into studying for finc and absolutely get demolished by the exams or assignments. It is not 'easy'.

Yeah Jane street is a trading firm so is Optiver and they both hire maths/science students (amogst others) because that's what trading requires. Does it mean they also don't hire finc grads? No, last person I met from optiver was a finc/law kid who's now their poster boy. Of course maths or engo is a great additional skill to have - it will complement your analysis etc. The only issue is that finance is a lot wider - it requires you to draw from multiple sources - your maths skill set just being 1 of them.

 

[Rhinoz8142]

My angus is peppered

 

[Shadowdude]

Maths is not harder. You are missing the point. Its not about 'look at the material we are covering' and 'look at how complex everything looks' - obviously Adv Maths questions will look complex to someone who doesn't do the degree - but it definitely is not beyond the capacity of most people doing well in Finance. The level of competition and just general aptitude of people in finance (I can only speak for usyd) is probably higher compared to an undergrad Adv maths degree - that makes it a more difficult. Fairly confident if the top 10 kids in my usyd finc cohort were doing maths - they would still be around the top. Adv Maths is not beyond the intellectual capacity of someone doing well in finc - yet this is the vibe that comes off adv maths/engo kids.

There are plenty of smart kids who literally put so many hours into studying for finc and absolutely get demolished by the exams or assignments. It is not 'easy'.

Yeah Jane street is a trading firm so is Optiver and they both hire maths/science students (amogst others) because that's what trading requires. Does it mean they also don't hire finc grads? No, last person I met from optiver was a finc/law kid who's now their poster boy. Of course maths or engo is a great additional skill to have - it will complement your analysis etc. The only issue is that finance is a lot wider - it requires you to draw from multiple sources - your maths skill set just being 1 of them.

m8 lost you at the first sentence tbh

and this, "Adv Maths is not beyond the intellectual capacity of someone doing well in finc" is the best joke i've heard all day



That's why there are so many open problems in Finance that can't be solved and haven't been solved for hundreds of years and there are institutes that offer million dollar prizes for solutions to finance problems


hey why don't we get the finance geniuses to solve the riemann hypothesis

maybe we wouldn't have waited 200 years to solve fermat's last theorem if we just gave it to someone who did finance

 

[erckle999]

Maths is not harder. You are missing the point. Its not about 'look at the material we are covering' and 'look at how complex everything looks' - obviously Adv Maths questions will look complex to someone who doesn't do the degree - but it definitely is not beyond the capacity of most people doing well in Finance. The level of competition and just general aptitude of people in finance (I can only speak for usyd) is probably higher compared to an undergrad Adv maths degree - that makes it a more difficult.

Unfortunately you have missed the point. Sure, finance finance assessments and cohorts may make it harder to do well, but in any objective sense the content in maths is more difficult, more conceptual, more abstract. The techniques are more sophisticated and the problems to solve are harder in their generality. Just because finance has some glamour and people want to work for Goldman Sachs is why the cohort is more competitive. But if the criteria is what sort of IQ level do you need to grasp first year maths in a given time versus first year finance, or second year maths vs second year finance and so on, then maths is clearly harder.

I do think though that there is no reason Finance can't be an HSC course (if you can do geometric series, you are already most of the way there to a finance course or two) and therefore if they set up pre-requisites, uni finance could start one or two years ahead of where it does now. But as things stand, if you really want to insist that 'harder to do well' is the same thing or more important than 'conceptually harder', well maybe you belong at 'the Goldman Sachs'.

 

[erckle999]

The only issue is that finance is a lot wider - it requires you to draw from multiple sources - your maths skill set just being 1 of them.

Also this ^^^. You're insane. Finance is the definition of narrow. For example, in finance you solve one particular second order partial differential equation over and over (Black-Scholes) whereas in Maths you study PDE's in general, over arbitrary dimensions etc. I could go on but clearly you must see this is wrong.

What you meant (and half said) is that finance requires a wider range of skills to do well. This is, again, clearly wrong. Out in the world, finance (versus say something much more mathematical) might involve communication skills, the ability (and desire) to work ridiculous hours but these are simply skills required in business in general. They can be found in many competitive industries. If you compare academics in finance to academics in maths... yep, my point exactly.

 

[RishBonjour99]

Unfortunately you have missed the point. Sure, finance finance assessments and cohorts may make it harder to do well, but in any objective sense the content in maths is more difficult, more conceptual, more abstract. The techniques are more sophisticated and the problems to solve are harder in their generality. Just because finance has some glamour and people want to work for Goldman Sachs is why the cohort is more competitive. But if the criteria is what sort of IQ level do you need to grasp first year maths in a given time versus first year finance, or second year maths vs second year finance and so on, then maths is clearly harder.

I do think though that there is no reason Finance can't be an HSC course (if you can do geometric series, you are already most of the way there to a finance course or two) and therefore if they set up pre-requisites, uni finance could start one or two years ahead of where it does now. But as things stand, if you really want to insist that 'harder to do well' is the same thing or more important than 'conceptually harder', well maybe you belong at 'the Goldman Sachs'.

I reiterate what I already stated clearly - complexity in the maths degree is not beyond someone doing well in finc. Just because they choose to do finance over a straight maths degree does not make them intellectually inferior in any way. That's the vibe from maths students on this forum. Its wrong m8.

 

[itoki2288]

dw boys I do econ/finance and I did general maths in high school

 

[Trebla]

Why are you guys comparing Maths to Finance when they're two quite different branches?

I find them both challenging but in different ways...