Quant Guide 2020: University of Warwick

Coventry, UK

 

The University of Warwick’s MSc Mathematical Finance programme is one of a small group in this year’s Risk.net quant guide that has changed its academic course director. It’s also undergone a name change: in last year’s guide, it was the MSc in Financial Mathematics. The newly christened programme, which still takes place at the Warwick Business School, is now led by two instructors: professor of finance Roman Kozhan, and professor of statistics Aleksandar Mijatovic, who have taken over from former director and professor of statistics David Hobson. Teaching duties are shared between 12 faculty members from the university’s departments of statistics, mathematics and the business school itself, and the degree takes one year to complete for a full-time student.

The name change accompanies an overhaul of the curriculum. Course content is now based on four key topics: stochastic calculus, financial statistics, asset pricing and risk, and data science and machine learning.

A new two-term module has been added to the programme, entitled quantitative skills and programming, which focuses on C++. Two other languages, R and Python, are covered in the compulsory modules in the data science topic. Other core modules include a class in financial econometrics, a course in programming for quantitative finance and a 10,000-word master’s dissertation. Elective modules include topics in behavioural finance, statistical learning and big data.

A number of dissertation projects are also available, completed at external companies. Merit-based Warwick Business School scholarships are available, and can take care of up to 50% of the £34,500 ($45,000) tuition fee.

View this institution’s entry in the 2019 guide

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