The Big Apple!!

It was one busy week. Monday, took a flight with a classmate to NYC (red eye), checked into a hotel in Times Square, slept most of Tuesday morning, and then went to an information session + alumni event organized by MFE, which was well organized. (Ran into the famous "correctomundo" from the Global-derivatives forums!!) After the event, went out for drinks with some alums to the chic' meatpacking district, which was a lot of fun!!

Next morning, dragged myself to the IAFE event, and helped setup the MFE booth. The event was well attended, and I met some nice folks, both from academia and industry. I enjoyed the panels on Risk and the keynote lecture by Phelim Boyle. Incidentally, this was the first time, someone referred to me as "Quantjock".. It was none other than Aloke from NYU, who I had interacted from an earlier email exchange. We chatted at length at the differences and similarities of our respective programs.

Thursday/Friday, we moved to Jersey to stay with a friend, and kept it low key, visiting some friends on the Street, and looking over Stoch calculus in Manhattan coffeeshops for the upcoming exam. Also ate some great indo-chinese food (American chop-suey anyone?) at the Lex-33rd area of NYC.

Back in the bayarea, and getting ready for that exam!!!

Week 9...finals

Finals week...and then we are done. NOT!!! :))

Turns out I am going to NYC for attending an IAFE conference and an alum event. So I had to do a last minute reshuffle of my finals (one of them scheduled for next week). I am taking off today for NYC.

Will post after my trip, hopefully with some photos and stuff...

Week 8... end of term 1

Last week continued into classes and a bit of review. Thursday was the only free day, but our entire week was consumed with cover letters, interview emails, projects, and other unrelated stuff, that I just couldnt concentrate on the impending finals...

Well, this is Business school I guess, an exercise in prioritization!!

Friday was fun talking to some alums in NYC over video-conferencing. While West coast may be a disadvantage, it seems like the program does a great job "connecting" with the street..

Can't wait for the longgg (okay 1-week) break to begin!! :))

Week 7 and recruiting in full flow..

Its Week 7 only, and the campus is abuzz with some news of companies coming for interviews and info sessions in a couple of weeks (Already!!!!, yes believe it). This is an incredibly hectic time for most of us - projects, finals and for some - interviews!!

In coursework, Investments talked about Mean-variance theory. Stochastics has extended the change of measure theory to higher dimensions with correlated variables, while empricial dealt with filtering issues. Thankfully, the homework pressure was a bit off thanksfully this week.... Friday was spent with my group discussing our term end project. It is an interesting project dealing with comparison of market spreads with model data using empirical methods.....

In other interesting news, I saw this first issue of CAT bonds (I dealt with some of these securities in my previous life) by a Soverign developing nation. I wonder, after seeing devastating Tsnumais and Earthquakes in India and other parts of Asia, such issues may become common there as well...

Drought derivatives and week 6...

Lex: Drought derivatives: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance
Interesting article on imaginative uses of Derivatives.

This week got us into the thick of APT models in Investments (and an interesting speaker who talked about quantitative modeling for a fund that invests in ..well... movies.. very info-taining. See WSJ article on the same).

Empricial methods is exposing me to powerful concepts of Kalman filtering and GMM estimation methods. Stochastics dealt with EMM method for solving BS equation. Another great week of FPS's - one from a local (but famous.. no points for guessing) modeling firm and another the IT division of a major I-bank.

Thursday, we went for for a social with MBA finance club - it was quite useful for us to network with the other denizens of the business school - learning about the "other" side of I-banking - namely M&A, corporate finance, etc. Ended the week with another great "year end" Dean's party and a "consumption' function (more on that later...).