Financial Engineering Personal Statement

My volunteering work with the Indian Red Cross Society to teach disadvantaged children exposed me to development challenges in India. I became aware of the fact that lack of funding opportunities to support entrepreneurship through microfinance and social enterprises working for social development and inclusive economy are adversely impacting their competitiveness and potential to generate employment. The present method of financing social enterprises through government subsidies and charitable foundations is inadequate and inefficient. For e.g. microfinance which has immense potential to improve its reach and increase base is benefitting only 90 million borrowers in the least developed countries. India with the twin objectives of providing

Innovative financial engineering instruments such as social impact and green bonds can channelize investments from financial markets to these critical areas. Financial engineering in future shall increasingly contribute to improving the quality of public spending for the betterment of people’s lives in sectors such as housing, health, education, urban renewal, etc. Although financial instruments such as credit-default swaps and mortgage-based securities were considered to be the primary reason for the financial meltdown in 2007-08, still it made home ownership possible for millions of people. This aspect of financial engineering to have a positive and transformative effect on society is what propels me to a career in quantitative finance. Further, financial engineering which combines creativity with knowledge in computer science, statistics, applied mathematics, and economic theory shall provide ample opportunities to challenge my critical and analytical thinking and problem solving

I have made efforts to gain knowledge and skill set towards this end. During undergraduate program courses in Mathematics have helped me to develop an in-depth understanding of stochastic calculus, linear algebra and differential equations. The experience of working in three different sectors as an intern and full-time employee has made me proficient in programming in languages such as C++, Java, Ruby, R, SQL, VBA and Python. I have a working knowledge of Hadoop and MATLAB. The concepts of finance assimilated through electives in university, six-month internship at Oracle Financial Services Software Limited and preparation for Chartered Financial Analytics (CFA) level – 1 & 2 exams makes me receptive to advanced learning. The knowledge of big data gained during my stint at Flipkart an e-commerce company shall be useful as the continued adoption of big data is transforming the landscape of financial