This past winter, the Department of Applied Mathematics announced the addition of two new undergraduate majors in Computational Finance and Risk Management (CFRM) and Applied Mathematics. Following the first admissions cycle, both majors are now officially in effect, with 23 outstanding undergraduate students joining the BS-CFRM program for autumn 2020.
As a competitive major, current University of Washington students must submit an application for consideration. There are two admissions cycles each year in the autumn and spring quarters. The most recent cycle of admission opened on September 28 and the deadline to apply was October 9.
“We are now wrapping up the second admission cycle and we received almost double the total number of applications compared to last spring,” says undergraduate academic adviser Sarah Riley. “Many of our applicants were highly competitive and we expect this to continue as word spreads around campus about these new majors.”
The BS-CFRM degree provides students with a solid understanding of real-world mathematical, statistical, and computational methods that can be applied to the finance industry as well as advanced studies in financial engineering or quantitative finance, such as the MS-CFRM program.
Another option for students with an interest in quantitative finance is the Computational Finance (CF) minor, which was introduced in winter 2019. Currently, there are 45 students enrolled in the CF minor. Students can declare the minor through their major department. Much like the CFRM major, the CF minor also offers a foundation for further study in financial engineering. Of the students who have graduated from UW with a minor in Computational Finance, two are beginning their studies in the MS-CFRM program this autumn.
With the start of the new major and a new academic year, Applied Mathematics and CFRM faculty and staff are looking forward to what undergraduate students will accomplish during their time in the program and beyond.
“As advisers, we are thrilled to work with such a clearly talented cohort of students,” says Lauren Lederer, Academic Services Manager. “We look forward to great things from our first graduating class.”