My three-year journey studying the BSc program with major in Risk Management has provided me with the foundation of all the necessary knowledge to pursue jobs that require technical and analytical skills. What I like about this program is that not only I am equipped with all the quantitative skills for the risk management field itself but also at the same time I am able to learn other related topics like actuarial science, finance and data science, etc. I also enjoyed the courses have a good balance between the theory and the practical aspects, as well as the kind support from the professors and lecturers which helped determine my career path and future goals.
- Could you briefly introduce your background?
Darrak:
I graduated in 2014 and after one year I pursued a master degree in Financial Mathematics. I have been working as a developer in Societe Generale since 2017 and was transferred to the New York branch in 2022.
- What is your current job role about and do you think if the program help achieve your current position? If so, how?
Darrak:
I am working in the front office side building the pricing and risk systems for the trading desk in Fixed Income and Currency perimeters. In terms of technical skills, the courses on derivatives and risk models are very helpful and become the foundations when I worked on these systems. For example, I need to be very familiar with the pricing formulas of the interest rate derivatives like swaps or futures in order to cross check if our prices contributed to the markets are correct. I also need to understand risk models to decompose the pnl explanation to different risk buckets in order for traders to know how to hedge their positions. And even when there is some domain knowledge in my work that I didn’t learn before, I am also able to grasp it faster due to the basics I have acquired in this program.
- Do you have any advice for the prospective/current student to succeed in this program?
Darrak:
I think it is very important that while studying the courses of this program one should also spent time to explore how the knowledge learnt can be applied in real-world problems. Applying for internships, talking to experienced professionals in the related fields through various means like seminars, talks, etc and participating in competitions are one of many ways that can help you determine your career goal in the future. In turn it also helps you decide what courses to choose from and understand how they could be useful for you.
- What do you think about the future of the field in risk management?
Darrak:
When I first studied the program in 2011, risk management was considered to be one of the hottest topics in the financial industry as there were a lot of discussion on how to build a robust risk model/system since the financial crisis in 2008. Spotlights have been switched to various other topics since then but I think risk management is still a very important part that many banks and hedge funds are trying to maintain it nowadays. There may not be a lot of renovation on this field in a short period of time due to the regulation and the limitation of math models but I do believe there is still a high demand on building these robust risk systems that help companies to make better decisions and it will continue to play a critical role on the trading and the operational side.
