What is the best major to study as an undergrad to best prepare me for the MFE program?

[Denny]

I'm currently a student who recently switched my major from Electrical Engineering to Industrial Engineering. I am interested in financial Engineering in the future is this a good change? Will IE prepare me fully for the MFE program or are there extra courses I should take to better prepare me for grad school?

 

[Lyosha]

The best preparation would be an easier curriculum in the things you will study as an MFE student... some sort of math/comp sci hybrid (i.e. math major, cs minor) with a few finance courses taken as electives would probably work best. As an undergrad you will want to learn as many "building blocks" as you can (i.e. linear algebra, differential equations, c++), because you are then going to learn to semi-properly apply them as an MFE student.

 

[Alexander Krosky]

It's naive to lump all forms of engineering together and claim they aren't as good. That being said, I did my undergrad in engineering and I think industrial engineering is one of the weakest engineering disciplines you could come from if you want to pursue MFE. Biomedical, chemical, and some forms of electrical too.

However, disciplines like control systems, heat transfer, fluid dynamics, structural dynamics, and signal processing will prepare you really well. It's not so much the degree as the type of tools you use. For example, your degree could be EE but if you're using search algorithms or doing a lot of signal processing in the frequency domain then you're going to be better off than a pure mathematician or a programmer. Engineering is great for developing the mindset that will help you succeed in FE. Different systems, similar tools, same thought processes.

 

[Yike Lu]

I agree with Mr Krause here. All of the engineering majors I knew in undergrad would have been more than prepared for an MFE program.

Then again, everybody at my school was required (regardless of major) to take...
1) Calculus, Lin Al, Multivar Calculus
2) ODE, Probability/Statistics
3) Mechanics, E&M, Quantum Mechanics, Statistical Mechanics

In addition, all engineering majors were required to take
1) Complex Analysis
2) Advanced ODE
3) PDE

in addition to their specific engineering courses.

If you get that done, I'd say you'd be sufficiently prepared.

 

[Denny]

Thank you all for the knowledge and input I really appreciate it. I will do some research to follow up on the discipline.