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Financial Engineering Concentration

Cornell is the birthplace of modern financial engineering. The first academic meeting on the subject was held here on May 29, 1989. Robert Jarrow and David Heath began advising students before formally launching the program in 1995, making Cornell one of the first universities to offer a financial engineering degree. In 2007, ORIE expanded the program to include a third semester in New York City, founding Cornell Financial Engineering Manhattan (CFEM). This extension further emphasized the program’s practical, hands-on approach through direct interaction with practitioners and industry-sponsored projects.

Offered through Cornell’s School of Operations Research and Information Engineering, the M.Eng. in Financial Engineering is a career-focused, application-driven program that goes beyond textbook finance. Highlights include a flexible curriculum covering data science, optimization, analytics, and computing; a wide range of finance courses; an integrated, optional Financial Data Science certificate; industry-sponsored capstone projects; and career development programs designed to help students launch their careers.

Structured to offer a flexible curriculum, the program allows students to focus on a career track of their choice. Some of the most popular career tracks include:

 

  • Trading

  • Quantitative portfolio management

  • Financial data science/fintech

  • Financial risk management

Placement Information

While the majority of our students have firm post-graduation plans by the time they graduate in the middle of December, some will find new job offers within the first months of the new year.

Many new opportunities become available between February and May of the following year, and CFEM works closely with newly-minted alumni and recruiters to ensure high placement rates within 6-9 months after graduation.

The People of CFEM – Practitioners, Faculty, and Staff

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