Correct my essay please

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Personal Essay. Applicants should touch upon the following topics:

Why are you interested in Financial Engineering?
Why do you want to study in the Financial Engineering MS Program at Baruch College?
What career path do you envision after graduating from the MFE Program?

The main reason why I want to enroll in a Financial Engineering program is that I discovered this field during my master’s thesis work. Having received the equivalent of both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in Mathematics, I have developed strong mathematical skills and a genuine interest for Probability and Statistics. In my bachelor’s degree I passed an exam called Mathematical Finance and I was able to understand that both Probability and Statistics are heavily involved in investment banks and hedge funds, of course as well as programming. When I asked my Probability professor a thesis for my master’s degree, I demanded him if there was some available works with applications to the finance world. Even though he is not a finance expert, he required me to study the Probability topic called Large Deviations and its application in risk management. After which, I was able to create a model to estimate possible large losses of a credit risk portfolio and to compare it with another model published in a research paper. I have to admit that I really enjoyed working at my thesis, and I was very intrigued about how mathematics is used in this specific field of finance. Moreover, since when I began my university experience, my goal was to have a job which involves a lot of the mathematics I was studying, preferably one that would give me everyday challenges and that would include some mathematical modeling. Hence, mathematical finance really meets all my criteria for a good and satisfactory career.

I know I have not taken many programming and numerical analysis courses during my education. This was due to a personal choice. For my degrees I had to pass many exams that were heavily abstract and theoretic. This means I had to use a lot of imagination and inventiveness to understand proofs of theorems and to solve exercises. Indeed, getting a Pure Mathematics degree in Italy, both bachelor’s and master’s, means I have passed many exams that are proof-based. In quite all my exams I had to pass both a written exam to test my ability of solving exercises and an oral exam where I have to show a complete understanding of theorems and their proofs. Mainly in the exams of my master’s degree, I have met topics that belong to current research; therefore they are not easy to understand. What I strongly believe is that, after five years studying hard mathematics, I can now go through any applied math or programming courses and do well in them thanks to my previous extremely rigorous preparation.

The reason why I would like to enroll at the Baruch MFE program is quite simple. Given that in Italy there are only minor financial centers, and due to the crisis and the recent ticklish situation regarding my country, I have to imagine myself working and living in another country. To be honest, unfortunately this is the general rule for graduates in scientific disciplines, since my country does not give enough funds for scientific research and first jobs are really underpaid compared to the level of education. Therefore, I would like to work and live in one of the major financial centers in the world. New York follows naturally. Since Baruch College is located there, and since the QuantNet forum ranks your program in the top 5 US MFE programs, I considered your program as one of my top choices. Furthermore, I really like how your program is organized. From what I can see, it has a good balance between the core courses, which has strong mathematical emphasis, and elective courses, where students can focus more on subjects they are more interested in. Finally, your outstanding employment statistics, as well as the positive reviews I read about your career services from QuantNet, have really grown a strong interest towards your program.

Because of my master’s thesis, my actual plan is to find a job in risk management right after finishing a financial engineering program. I know that after Basel III positions in risk management have dramatically increased, requiring all banks to have their risk management division. This could be a perfect opportunity for me to start a career. By the way, I have to admit that this is just my actual idea. Indeed, lacking of any working experience, I could not definitely promise that I will not change my mind after enrolling in a MFE program. It could happen that after taking some courses I would decide to switch my plans and pursue a career in Quantitative Portfolio Management, a field that involves the use of many mathematical models. I also know another Italian student who now works in a hedge fund in London, after finishing a MFE program there. He told me that he is doing a graduate scheme in which he deals with trading, risk and quant research. Also this kind of job could be interesting.

I would like to explain why I do not have a clear idea on which path I would prefer as of today. I believe that it is because I do not have any working experience. This is due to the fact that in my country it is very difficult to join a decent offer from banks. They usually require some working experience and do not accept fresh graduates. Moreover, their internship lasts six months where you have to work ten or more hours per day to receive a pay of just 700 Euros a month. After finishing the internship you do not have any guarantee to be further employed there. In my case, I think that applying for a financial engineering program right after getting my second degree in Mathematics is the best career choice I could do. I have a solid mathematical background to succeed in a competitive program like yours, and I would be able to build the necessary programming skills I need in it. For these reasons, I am currently studying by myself the classic Hull’s book “Options, Futures, and Other Derivatives” to have a clearer idea of what are the topics developed in Mathematical Finance, even though I passed an exam during my third university year where I faced the Black and Scholes equation and a description of the numerical analysis tools involved in the field. Moreover, I will study by myself in these months “Problem Solving with C++” by Walter Savitch in order to get a refresher about C++. I strongly believe that this kind of preparation would be enough to cover my actual weakest points and would prepare me to handle the challenges I will find in a competitive program like yours at best.