Maths really count

The new inter-faculty degree in maths and economics at NUI Galway grew out of the idea that many of the college's maths graduates have ended up in the financial and business sector - without any economics or business background. Ted Hurley, professor of maths at NUI Galway, says that in Britain and Northern Ireland there is a similar trend with about 40 per cent of maths graduates finding work "in the City"

Trends in the labour market of advanced countries indicate "the increasing premium that the corporate and financial sectors place on highly-numerate graduates with the ability to apply the new technologies in a commercial environment". Of the UK's 4,500 maths graduates each year, the 40 per cent already mentioned go directly into the commercial sector, particularly accounting, actuarial work and banking, while a further 25 per cent go into the computer industry.

By comparison, Ireland produces only about one-fifth pro-rata the number of maths graduates but has had a highly developed financial sector for a number of years.

"We got together with the economics department," says Hurley, "and came up with the idea of a degree for numerate people, which would supply them with a background in economics and maths." Prospective students must have a minimum of a C3 in higher-level Leaving Cert maths but they do not need to have studied economics, which comprises about one quarter of the course. Indeed, those who have studied economics previously are not at any advantage, he adds.

And the ultimate destination of the graduates of the course? Hurley says that highly-numerate graduates are needed, say, to understand models for financial derivatives (and their limitations), neural networks and the sophisticated maths, statistics and computations now being used by financial institutions.

He alludes to two Nobel prize winners - Merton and Scholes - who were awarded the prize in economics for devising a new method to calculate financial derivatives using mathematical models. He mentions the advent of the Internet and email with its offshoot e-commerce which requires security in the form of encryption.

In addition to the economic and commercial sectors, graduates of the degree in financial maths and economics may also find work in the area of information technology, computer science and software engineering.

The course has four major themes: economics, maths, statistics and computing. The economics will cover core economic theory and financial economics, while maths will comprise core mathematical concepts and techniques as well as financial maths and some areas of actuarial maths. Statistics will include core concepts and techniques as well as financial econometrics.

The B Sc in financial maths and economics is a four-year honours programme. From the third-year onwards, students can choose from a number of optional courses in the financial maths and economics area. This year about 20 students embarked on the first year of the new programme. These pioneering students will graduate and be eligible to enter the labour market in the year 2002.

If the employment history of the college's related degree in mathematical science/computing is any guide these people will be snapped up. In the past five years, 102 people have graduated from this programme. A very high percentage of graduates went directly into well-paid jobs and, indeed, most had a number of job offers by February or March of the year of graduation.

NUI Galway has been able to trace 100 of the graduates and, of these, none is unemployed. The computer industry and the financial services sector account for about 90 per cent of the graduates.