They have three professional M.S. programs in Mathmatics Department - Mathematics in Finance, Scientific Computing and Mathematics & Statics/Operations Research. Professor Chuck Newman, the presenter, mainly talked about the program in Finace. All people in the room asked a lot of questions and wanted to figure out why the program has been successful and how they have managed the program.

The program consists of 11 one-semester courses and a master project. It has four essential components - practical applications of financial mathematics, financial theory and modeling, mathematical foundations, and computational skills. The courses in four cartegories cover finacial markets and participants, equilibrium and portfolio theory, arbitrage pricing, yield curve modeling, hedging strategies, financial theory and computational methods, probability, numerical computing in finance, and so on. In the master's project, students collaborate in small groups to work through a problem in financial mathematics from the formulation to the presentation, making full use of their modeling and computing skills.

One good reason for success of this program is the location of the school. Close cooperation between the Courant Institute and the finance community is an essential part of the program and gives it a unique character. There are adjunct faculties from Wall Street. They are willing to give lectures to the students even though the school does not offer much money to them comparing to their salary. The motives are, guessed by Professor Chuck Newman, that they probably want to be teachers or to make their good resume. One interesting thing is they have one 120 minutes class per week for 3 credits. It is shorter than usual. It's probably because of the adjunct faculties.

They have part time students, who are usually spported by the companys they work for and full time students, who are usually spported by themselves. The department does not support students in master's program but some students are willing to get into the program without the support from the department. The applicants have to demonstrate an aptitude for quantitative reasoning and need mathematics background. Calculus, multiple integrals, Taylor series, and linear algebra are required. Probability, Statistics, computer programing, or economics is recommended. They have a chance to select good students for this Finance program. - Note that they do not for the Scientific Computing Master's Program. This is another reason to become successful in the program.