You’ll come out of the programme as a fully-fledged professional – ready to work independently as soon as you start your first job.
The Duisenberg Honours Programme in Quantitative Finance (QF) is extra challenging, as it constitutes of 84 EC within one year instead of the regular 60 EC. Note, that in case you feel that the workload is too high during the first block of the programme you have the possibility to change over to the 60 EC Finance track of the programme.
The programme will focus more on the quantitative aspect of finance compared to the regular Finance track as it combines finance with mathematics, statistics, econometrics as well as with machine learning. In doing so, the programme focuses on financial markets, asset pricing, fixed income, and derivatives.
To break it down:
- The first two periods consist of quantitative asset pricing, building investment strategies in equities and fixed income using quantitative analyses. You’ll get hands-on experience of using econometric models and learn the basics of machine learning. Finally, you you’ll cover derivatives and the fundamental mathematical concepts that dictate how financial markets move.
- In the third period, you’ll conduct a research project that relates to a genuine issue in the industry.
- In the fourth and fifth period, you will achieve advanced knowledge of the investment process of institutional investors, like pension funds, and the concept of balance sheet management. Meanwhile, you get a thorough understanding of quantitative (financial) risk management methods.
- During the last two periods, you’ll also write your Master’s thesis, possibly in combination with an internship. Past students have taken internships at the top 4 consulting firms, major banks, top pension funds, insurance companies, fintech companies and trading firms. In all cases, you’ll be carrying out cutting-edge research that’s driven by a practical need. Again, ideally, you’ll be applying your knowledge at a large financial institution or start-up in practice.
Wim Duisenberg was a Dutch politician whose pivotal role in the financial sector culminated in serving as the first President of the European Central Bank. The three Duisenberg Honours Programmes at VU Amsterdam are named after this influential figure in Dutch and European Economics.
See an overview of the course schedule here.
The start date of this programme is September 1st.