Part-time Curriculum

Complete the same rigorous curriculum as in our one-year option, but at a slower pace. Full-time students take 7 units each term and part-time students take 2–6 units.

Get answers to frequently asked questions about the part-time option. →

Curriculum Overview
(Two-Year Program)

All MFE students must complete 28 units of coursework, plus a 10- to 12-week internship or industry/independent study project. If you're employed while attending the program, you may be able to use your employment to meet the internship requirement.

First Year

March 2021—March 2022

Orientation (March | 1 Week)

The program kicks off with an informative and social orientation. During this week-long introduction to the program, you'll get to know other new students and gain a sense of what the classroom experience will hold. The orientation features team-building exercises, lectures, and workshops on special topics, including a thorough overview of the job market and career resources.

Term One (March–May | 8 Weeks)
Investments and Derivatives

MFE 230A (2 units) - Nicolae Garleânu

This course covers the basic theories of asset pricing. It begins with the standard discounted cash flow analysis and generalizes this approach to develop the No Arbitrage Pricing technique for security valuation. Applications including fixed income securities, derivatives and contingent claims will be considered. The course will then examine the basic principles of optimal portfolio theory and consider special models of equilibrium asset pricing, including the Capital Asset Pricing Model and related Factor Models. Applications to equity pricing and portfolio performance evaluation will be explored. Programming and analytical exercises will be assigned.



Empirical Methods in Finance

MFE 230E (3 units) - Martin Lettau

This course reviews probability and statistical techniques commonly used in quantitative finance. It includes a review of normal, log-normal, and CEV distributions. This course covers estimation and non-parametric techniques commonly used in finance (MLE, GMM, GARCH) and introduces students to financial databases and to estimation application software for exercises in estimating volatilities and correlations and their stability.



Stochastic Calculus with Asset Pricing Applications

MFE 230Q (2 units) - Dmitry Livdan

This course introduces the concepts and tools of stochastic calculus as required for effective pricing of complex financial derivatives in continuous time. The course stresses the practical applications of stochastic differential equations, Ito integrals, and measure transformations as required in advanced financial engineering practice and for the understanding of asset pricing theory. The material discussed in this course is used extensively in the some of the more advanced classes.



Term Two (June–July | 8 Weeks)
Fixed Income Markets

MFE 230I (3 units) - Richard Stanton

This course provides a quantitative approach to fixed income securities and bond portfolio management. The focus is on fixed income security markets, pricing and uses for portfolio management or for hedging interest rate risk. The course covers bond mathematics, term structure measurement and theory, immunization techniques and the modern theory of bond pricing, including the pricing of credit-risky bonds. It also covers derivative instruments (futures, swaps, options, exotic instruments). There will be extensive use of application and programming exercises.

Financial Data Science

MFE 230P (2 units) - Laurent El Ghaoui

This course proposes a guided tour through optimization models arising in practical Finance. These problems include ones that are traditionally associated with optimization, including asset and liability management, asset pricing, and portfolio optimization. We also describe optimization models arising in model calibration, prediction and estimation, and risk analysis. The course includes some recent approaches to the analysis of other kinds of financial data, such as text (financial news) data.



Term Three (August–October | 8 Weeks)
Applied Finance Project

MFE 230N (0 units)

(Need description for this course.)

Risk Management

MFE 230H (2 units) - Amir Kermani

This course examines financial risk measurement and management, including market risk, credit risk, liquidity risk, settlement risk, model risk, volatility risk, kurtosis risk and other types of financial risks. It includes risk measurement techniques for different types of contracts and portfolios (equity, fixed income, currency) such a duration, portfolio Beta, factor sensitivities, Value at Risk™, dynamic portfolio distribution analysis and extreme value analysis. It also includes risk management techniques for different types of problems such as trading desk risk management, total portfolio market exposure limits, counterpart credit exposure limits, and funding liquidity exposure limits.

Independent Study Project

MFE293 (1 - 3 units) - Choose an advisor

The Independent Study course is your opportunity to do research in an area of interest to you, in which there are no existing courses.

Electives (choose up to 4 units)

Elective offerings vary by year/term. See the list of current elective courses.

Internship (October–January | 10 to 12 Weeks)

Internship/Special Topics in Finance

The Internship/Special Topics in Finance project is a required condition for graduation. The internship or approved, on-site project takes place from mid-October to mid-January.

Because of the school's reputation and close ties to the best firms, Haas has an exceptional record of helping students secure internships, consistently placing 100% of students each year.



Term Four (January–March | 8 Weeks)
Financial Innovation with Data Science Applications

MFE 230J (2 units) – Ananth Madhavan and Christine Parlour

The objective of the course is to explore modern financial innovation through the lens of data science, and through a combination of lectures, cases, guest speakers, and applied data science projects. By the end of the course, the students will better understand the most significant financial innovations today and the critical role quantitative research can play in determining success.

Dynamic Asset Management

MFE 230K (2 units) - Kevin Coldiron

Covers the strategies for achieving various investment objectives for portfolios/ instruments (equity, fixed income, currency, mortgages, non-traded assets) and applications (investment funds, pension funds, insurance companies, bank investment portfolios).

Behavioral Finance

MFE 230S (2 units) -Greg LaBlanc

This course covers elements of behavioral decision theory and its implication in financial markets. Focus is on the psychological processes by which people make judgments and decisions, and the heuristics and biases associated with these decisions.

Second Year

March 2022—March 2023

During your second year in the program, you may also take core courses and/or complete the internship/independent study project if you haven't already done so in your first year.

Term Five (March—May | 8 Weeks)
Independent Study Project

MFE293 (1 - 3 units) - Choose an advisor

The Independent Study course is your opportunity to do research in an area of interest to you, in which there are no existing courses.

Term Six (June—July | 8 Weeks)
Derivatives: Quantitative Methods

MFE 230D (2 units) - Eric Reiner

This course emphasizes the pricing of derivatives in continuous time, from the formulation of the pricing problem to the implementation of computational and numerical solution techniques. The course consists of three parts. In the first part, asset pricing theory is used to set up the pricing problem for a wide range of instruments with features such as early exercise, jumps, and path dependencies. The second part focuses on simulation methods for pricing both European and early exercise derivatives. The third part shows how to effectively use advanced finite difference techniques for solving a wide array of pricing problems.

Term Seven (August—October | 8 Weeks)
Electives (choose up to 6 units)

Elective offerings vary by year/term. See the list of current elective courses.

You may also take core courses you did not complete in your first year.

INTERNSHIP (OCTOBER–JANUARY | 10 TO 12 WEEKS)

You may complete your internship or independent study project during this time if you didn't complete it during your first year.

Term Eight (January—March | 8 Weeks)
Applied Finance Project

MFE 230O (3 units) - Eric Reiner

This is an applied project exploring an unresolved finance problem that is met in practice and involves the development or use of a quantitative financial technique. Participation requires prior approval of the supervising faculty member.

Electives (choose up to 3 units)

Elective offerings vary by year/term. See the list of current elective courses.

You may also take core courses you did not complete in your first year.