Courant Institute, Stern School Launch MBA/MS Finance Degree

NYU has launched a dual-degree program designed to give tomorrow’s “quant jocks” both depth in quantitative skills and breadth in management perspective to effectively manage risk, sophisticated trading models, and people in today’s computation-driven financial markets. The joint M.B.A./M.S. in mathematics in finance degree is a partnership between NYU’s Stern School of Business and the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences.

The new M.B.A./M.S. program will enable students to pursue both degrees simultaneously. Designed to be the most comprehensive program of its kind, the M.B.A./M.S. will employ the top resources and faculty of each school, including senior-level Wall Street practitioners and researchers who invented models now used every day. The program aims to attract the very best mathematics candidates who have demonstrated quantitative aptitude coupled with management and leadership potential and ambition.

With the accelerated shift in the financial landscape toward quantitative trading strategies, complex derivatives models, asset-backed securities, and exotic structured products, there is a real need for managers who can both apply and translate to the firm the value of these products for profit and growth. NYU aspires to produce a new type of graduate, competitively poised to pursue growth career tracks in quantitative risk and portfolio management, algorithmic trading, and the design, pricing, trading, and hedging of structured products.

“The field of financial mathematics draws on tools from applied mathematics, computer science, statistics, and economics,” said Leslie Greengard, director of the Courant Institute. “By combining expertise in these disciplines with the great strength in financial and business management provided by the Stern School, this dual-degree program will be training tomorrow’s leaders in the finance industry.”

“Wall Street has long looked to Stern for financial management talent and to Courant for quantitative finance talent. For those who aspire to build robust careers on Wall Street, our new joint program will give students the best of both worlds, with unparalleled access to the latest financial research and practice,” said Thomas F. Cooley, dean of NYU Stern School of Business. “As an institution that prides itself on being ‘in and of the city’, we’re particularly excited about this partnership program that addresses a pressing market need.”

Students spend the first two years taking courses at both Stern and Courant. After completing the M.B.A. requirements during the first two years, students continue to earn the remaining credits through part-time study at Courant. Students may begin full-time employment after completing the first two years of the program. Students are awarded the M.B.A. after successful completion of the first two years of the program and the M.S. upon the successful completion of the final semester.

Interested candidates must submit applications both to Stern and Courant, and be accepted by both schools. The dual-degree program will commence in fall 2008. For more information, go to: www.nyu.edu/public.affairs/releases/ detail/1827.