It’s been a week and a half
since I’ve been back at university. So far, I am enjoying university life and
hanging around my friends again. This term is going to be really quite busy
what with me studying three new modules compared to last term. This term I am
studying; Numerical Methods and Software for Partial Differential Equations.
Wow! That’s quite a mouthful to say, isn’t it? Basically this course involves
solving partial differential equations as well as ordinary differential
equations using different methods, both by hand calculations (crucial for the
May exams) and also using different software: Excel and Matlab, just to name a
few. A partial differential equation
(PDE) is an equation involving one or more partial derivatives of an unknown
function of several variables. The highest order derivative in the PDE
determines the order of the PDE. PDEs
are used extensively to represent real world phenomena and processes. For
example: Heat transfer in nuclear reactors, Airflow around an aircraft,
Structural dynamics of a bridge and Movement of money in financial markets. The
modelling and simulation of such processes then requires solution of these
PDEs. Having only attended two lectures
so far, I’m not sure about the exact content on the course, but I know that I
will learn much more over the next few months.
The second option I am taking
is called Financial Modelling and
Analysis. This
course investigates modern financial modeling using stochastic processes,
arbitrage theory and partial differential equations. I chose this course
because I am really interested in finance and financial markets. My final year
dissertation is based heavily on finance and therefore I thought that this
would be a brilliant module for me to study. This course covers a wide variety
of interesting and exciting aspects of finance, for example; The Black –
Scholes PDE, Basket and Asian Options (I wonder what that’s about?) and
something I’m very familiar with; the Monte Carlo Integration using Matlab. I
am familiar with the Monte Carlo Method as it was covered last year in one of
my modules called Numerical Methods with Computer Algorithms. Interestingly
enough, the lecturer who taught the Numerical Methods course last year, is
teaching the Financial Modeling course this year.
The final module which I am taking this year is
called Actuarial Mathematics. This course investigates modern actuarial
modeling and examines the basic techniques used in actuarial analysis. This
module covers interesting topics such as: life insurance, premium calculations,
Simple & Compound Interest, Present
Value, Annuities, etc amongst many other topics. This module does require a lot
of statistics and calculus, but I suppose that’s okay considering I did study
Statistical Modelling last term. I also studied statistics last year and the
year before that as well. I studied Calculus in my first year of uni. So I am
quite looking forward to learning more regarding this module.
There are other modules which
are offered and we are allowed two weeks to try and test as many of them as we
wish, (this Friday is the last day for testing) and if we want to change
modules then we need to email our personal tutor by Friday. From next Monday
onwards we can only attend the courses which we are registered for. There are
five courses running this term, one module every day. We can only be registered
to three of them. In my opinion, the first two weeks are relatively easy
compared to the weeks ahead as they just cover the basics of what you need to know
in that module. I think they do it that way so that everyone should have
roughly the same or similar knowledge in order to understand the lecture
material. They can then decide if this course is right for them.
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