New Master of Science in Finance Program Starting Fall 2014

The past several years have been a time of exciting change and transformation for UIC Liautaud Graduate School of Business, including a new dean, Michael Mikhail, the new Douglas Hall, the hiring of many additional faculty and career staff, and the start of our new Weekend MBA program. This year, we plan to continue this momentum as we launch a brand new program — the Master of Science in Finance degree (MSF) beginning Fall 2014.

Professional opportunities in finance are changing dramatically as technology has revolutionized access to information, speed of transactions and ability to gather and analyze data.  Our faculty emphasize innovative and developing areas of finance, including risk management, derivatives, corporate finance, portfolio management, banking and global financial markets, giving our students a first look at the newest insights and trends across the evolving financial landscape.

Highlights of the program include:

• Fast-paced and flexible: thirty-two credit hour degree program that can be completed in one year of full-time study (or more than one year of part-time study)
• Financial certification preparation: preparing students to pass key professional exams that measure the competence and integrity of financial analysts. Students will also be prepared for certifications in independent risk management and decision making.
• Curriculum beyond the typical classroom experience: Chicago is a trading city. It is the birthplace of financial derivatives. UIC Liautaud leverages its strategic location by bringing industry leaders into the classrooms with unique courses that are not found elsewhere, like Market Microstructure and Electronic Trading, Meet the Exchanges, Commodities, Energy and Related Market, Theory and Structure of Options and Futures Markets, and many others.
•  CME Market Training Lab: our virtual electronic trading floor allows students to explore innovative trading strategies through technology that simulates trading floor dynamics. Our students use  Bloomberg Professional and other industry software  that make them marketable and job ready for finance careers.
• International Center for Futures and Derivatives: brings to campus the who's who of financial trading and engineering from across the US and abroad to exchange ideas. Our faculty are creating new ways of thinking about how financial markets work, market structures, models of price discovery; limit order model, liquidity and price impact, time effects; and, how electronic traders use these ideas to improve trading and research.

If you are interested in the Master of Science in Finance degree, I encourage you to take the next step and sign up for one of our upcoming information sessions. I hope to see you on campus soon!