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Master in Finance Tracks and Electives

Master in Finance

Tracks and Electives

Elective courses can be chosen according to either individual needs and preferences or to conform to one of the suggested tracks listed below. It is not necessary for a student to designate or complete a particular track to satisfy the program’s requirements. The tracks listed below are merely illustrations of coherent courses of study that students might choose.

Beyond the tracks listed below, the program offers a number of electives in corporate finance, dealing with the choice and financing of investment projects, firms’ determination of dividend policy, optimal capital structure, financial reorganization, mergers and acquisitions, start-up financing, deal structure, incentive design, valuation of high risk projects, initial public offerings, etc. However, we believe that our students’ comparative advantage lies in other areas encompassed within the modern investment bank such as asset management, risk management, derivatives pricing and trading, fixed income analytics, and other areas where a quantitative background in theoretical and practical aspects of modern finance is essential.

Students looking for information on key program requirements and core courses can find that information here.

Three optional program tracks

Quantitative Asset Management

  • Focuses on designing and evaluating financial products that help organizations manage risk-return trade-offs.
  • Work on portfolio management, risk management, asset pricing and hedging, providing the necessary quantitative background to leaders and innovators in this growing field.
  • Highly requested at major investment banks, hedge funds, and asset managers.
  • Includes courses in probability, optimization, stochastic calculus, dynamic programming, machine learning, and several disciplines in financial economics.

Data Science & Financial Technologies

  • For those interested in computer-based technologies and their increasingly important use of big data in finance.
  • Focuses on computational techniques needed in “real-time” computing environments including efficient trading systems, algorithms, high-frequency data analysis, interfaces, processing large databases, and the security of computer networks.
  • Essential for competitive financial firms demanding more efficient trading processes, data signal extractions with increased speed and lower costs.
  • Courses cover the latest tools and techniques of financial technologies (FinTech), computer science, and computational methods in finance, including machine learning, information retrieval, artificial intelligence, and deep learning.

Valuation & Macroeconomic Analysis

  • Focuses on the strategic understanding of a firm’s valuation and structural macroeconomic conditions.
  • Studies how to evaluate and finance investment projects, including start-up financing, deal restructuring, and how to determine the optimal capital structure of a firm.
  • Formulates strategies consistent with the expected performance of the macroeconomy.
  • Fundamental for venture capital funds, global macro funds, strategic consultancies in finance, and pension funds.
  • Includes courses in corporate finance, behavioral finance, investment projects, financial reorganization, mergers and acquisitions, incentive design, initial public offerings, time series analysis, macroeconomics, and asset and liability management.

 

Pre-approved Master in Finance Elective Courses

The following courses are pre-approved as eligible electives toward the Master in Finance degree. Some of these courses have prerequisites, or require permission of the respective instructors.

Importantly, any course not on the pre-approved elective list must be pre-approved by the Director of Graduate Studies and will not be considered unless it meets the following criteria: a) having regular homework assignments b) a final exam, and c) is a full semester (not a half semester) course.

Please check this page for the most current updates regarding courses eligible as elective courses, as courses are often added or removed from this list.  Not all courses may be offered every year. Please check with the relevant departments to confirm their offerings in any given year.

In addition to browsing the lists below, you can view descriptions of currently-available electives on the Registrar’s Office website.

Finance Applications Courses

FIN 515 Portfolio Theory and Asset Management
FIN 516 Topics in Corporate Finance, FINTECH
FIN 517 Venture Capital and Private Equity Investment
FIN 518 International Financial Markets
FIN 519 Corporate Restructuring, Mergers and Acquisitions
FIN 521
Fixed Income, Options and Derivatives: Models and Applications
FIN 522 Financial Derivatives and Currencies 
FIN 523 Forecasting and Time Series Analysis
FIN 560 Master’s Project I *Does not count towards degree*
FIN 561 Master’s Project II *Does not count towards degree*
FIN 567 Institutional Finance: Trading and Markets
FIN 568 Behavioral Finance
FIN 570 Valuation and Security Analysis
FIN 580 Quantitative Data Analysis in Finance
FIN 590 Financial Accounting
FIN 591 Cases in Financial Risk Management
FIN 592 Asian Capital Markets
FIN 593 Financial Crises
FIN 594 Chinese Financial and Monetary Systems
ECO 414 Introduction to Economic Dynamics
ECO 525/FIN 525 Asset Pricing
ECO 526/FIN 526 Corporate Finance
ECO 527/FIN 527 Financial Modeling
ECO 529 Financial and Monetary Economics
ORF 455 Energy and Commodities Markets
ORF 527 Stochastic Calculus
ORF 530 Financial Data Mining
ORF 531/FIN 531 Computational Finance in C++
ORF 534/FIN 534 Financial Engineering
ORF 535/FIN 535 Financial Risk and Wealth Management
ORF 538 PDE Methods for Financial Mathematics
ORF 545/FIN 545 High Frequency Markets: Models and Data Analysis
ORF 555 Fixed Income Models
ORF 574/FIN 574 Special Topics in Investment Science

General Methodology for Finance Courses

APC 350 Introduction to Differential Equations
APC 503 Analytical Techniques in Differential Equations
APC 524 Software Engineering for Scientific Computing
CEE 513 Introduction to Finite-element Methods
CEE 532 Advanced Finite-element Methods
CEE 548 Risk Assessment and Management
CBE 508 Numerical Methods for Engineers
CBE 530 Systems Engineering
COS 402 Machine Learning and AI
COS 423 Theory of Algorithms
COS 425 Database Information Management Systems
COS 432/ECE 432 Information Security
COS 436 Human-Computer Interaction
COS 448 Innovating Across Technology, Business, and Marketplaces
COS 461 Computer Networks
COS 511 Theoretical Machine Learning
COS 514 Fundamentals of Deep Learning
COS 524 Fundamentals of Machine Learning
ECE 433/COS 435 Information Retrieval, Discovery, and Delivery
ECE 473/COS 473  Elements of Decentralized Finance
ECE 524 Foundations of Reinforcement Learning
ECE 535 Machine Learning and Pattern Recognition
ECE 539 Special Topics in Data and Information Science: Optimization for Machine Learning
ECO 342 Money and Banking
ECO 418 Strategy and Information
ECO 501 Microeconomic Theory I
ECO 502 Microeconomic Theory II
ECO 503 Macroeconomic Theory I
ECO 504 Macroeconomic Theory II
ECO 507 Introduction to Macro-Finance
ECO 511 Advanced Economic Theory I
ECO 512 Advanced Economic Theory II
ECO 513 Advanced Econometrics: Time Series Models
ECO 514 Game Theory
ECO 517 Econometric Theory I
ECO 518 Econometric Theory II
ECO 519 Advanced Econometrics: Nonlinear Models
ECO 521 Advanced Macroeconomic Theory I
ECO 522 Advanced Macroeconomic Theory II
ECO 523 Public Finance I
ECO 524 Public Finance II
ECO 531 Economics of Labor
ECO 541 Industrial Organization and Public Policy
ECO 551 International Trade I
ECO 552 International Trade II
ECO 553 International Monetary Theory and Policy I
ECO 554 International Monetary Theory and Policy II
EGR 491 Hightech Entrepreneurship 
FIN 581 Entrepreneurial Finance, Private Equity and Venture Capital
MAE 305/MAT391 Mathematics in Engineering I (ODE, PDE)
MAE 306/MAT 392 Mathematics in Engineering II (PDE, complex variables)
ORF 311 Stochastic Optimization & Machine Learning in Finance
ORF 363/COS323 Computing and Optimization for the Physical and Social Sciences
ORF 401 Electronic Commerce
ORF 405 Regression and Applied Time Series
ORF 409 Introduction to Monte Carlo Simulation
ORF 418 Optimal Learning
ORF 474 Network Game Theory
ORF 522 Linear & Nonlinear Optimization
ORF 523 Convex & Conic Optimization
ORF 524 Statistical Theory and Methods
ORF 525 Statistical Foundations of Data Science
ORF 526 Probability Theory
ORF 533 Convex Analysis for Mathematical Finance
ORF 542 Stochastic Optimal Control
ORF 543 Deep Learning Theory
ORF 547 Dynamic Programming
ORF 548 Large Scale Optimization
ORF 549 Stochastic Programming
ORF 551/APC 551 Random Measures and Levy Processes
ORF 553 Stochastic Differential Equations
ORF 554 Markov Processes
SML 505 Modern Statistics
SPI 519B/PSY 528B Negotiation, Persuasion and Social Influence: Theory and Practice
SPI 523 Legal & Regulatory Policy Toward Markets
SPI 524 The Political Economy of Central Banking
SPI 544 International Macroeconomics
SPI 582C Topics in Economics: Growth, International Finance & Crisis
SPI 582F Topics in Economics: Understanding Macro & Financial Policy