About

The School of Engineering of Bogazici University, in collaboration with the School of Economics and Administrative Sciences and the School of Arts and Sciences, in the year 2002 established a Master of Science degree program in Financial Engineering (MSFE). This is an interdisciplinary program offered jointly by the Department of Industrial Engineering, Department of Mathematics and the Department of Management. It is the first academic program in Financial Engineering in Turkey. This program is being offered by the Institute for Graduate Studies in Science and Engineering.

The main objective of the program is to provide graduate level technical education to students who want to work in the new and growing finance industry. This includes investment banks and corporations, financial management and consulting companies, insurance companies and firms that invest in financial markets. Recent developments during the last decade has shown the need for an educational program whose graduates are equipped with the necessary tools and techniques to evaluate financial markets, determine investment strategies, as well as design, engineer and market new financial products. The topic has become more appealing with the emergence of new securities and financial instruments, like options, swaps, interest rate derivatives, credit derivatives and private retirement plans. A graduate of the program is expected to work not only in companies that market financial products, but also in the finance department of general service or manufacturing firms. 

Students will be exposed to a technically rigorous curriculum that provides a strong base in optimization techniques and stochastic modeling. The main emphasis is on the application of these techniques and models in financial markets through computational methods and simulation. Due to the apparent diversity of the educational program, it has an interdisciplinary structure that involves the three main schools of the university.

The targeted student body mainly consists of working professionals who are graduates of engineering, business and science schools with a minimum 2-year work experience. Although work experience is recommended, it is not required and new graduates with successful academic records can also apply. The enrollment plan for the FE program is to admit 35 new students every year. In order to apply, the students should have an undergraduate degree in a technical field like engineering, mathematics, physics, operations research and statistics or in a related field like economics or management.

Students who have successfully completed the requirements of the FE program will receive an MS degree. The graduation requirement is to complete 31 credits of course work consisting of 9 required, 2 elective courses and a graduation project. This can be accomplished in 3 semesters under normal circumstances. The graduation project requires teamwork by groups of 2-4 students on an applied topic under the supervision of a faculty member for 2 semesters. Those applicants who do not have the necessary background to follow the academic program may be required to take additional remedial courses. This background mainly consists of undergraduate level probability and statistics, linear algebra, calculus, differential equations, computer programming, basic economics and corporate finance.