How difficult is the business finance curriculum for math?
sweber20 asked:
I loathe math, as there have been some residual problems with mathematics in my academic record. As far as college business math, and real world applications, how much of this will need to be retained in order to successfully function in academia and the “real world”?
Desmond
I loathe math, as there have been some residual problems with mathematics in my academic record. As far as college business math, and real world applications, how much of this will need to be retained in order to successfully function in academia and the “real world”?
Desmond
December 1st, 2011 at 2:52 pm
Business finance IS maths based. To quote one of the professors in my university, finance sectors are looking to employ engineers over finance students due a need in mathematical expertise, which is also the reason we now have a core module “Mathematical Methods for Finance” in our year 2 curriculum.
Even without those, year 1 basic finance modules will require maths. While it IS possible to simply memorise formulaes and plug in values, it is much more difficult for someone without a good basis in maths.
On the other hand, the maths used is of a different type. I can’t really put this into words. Its not a world of calculus, 3D models, geometry, trigonometry, so the maths you see might be quite different. Most of them require nothing more than being able to think in a mathematical way, and reasoning out the formulas.
Here are some links to the formulas bare basics of finance
(just look at the formulas ignore the chunks of descriptions):
Please don’t be put off by the sheer number of symbols. Most of the time its just subbing in values.
Nevertheless, there ARE finance students who’ve gone to have a great career in finance even though their maths weren’t so great. There’s hardly anything you can’t improve if you can develop the interest.
Good Luck.