This programme, linked to Southampton Management School's PgDip Management Sciences and Finance, offers a firm grounding in finance in preparation for a career in financial institutions. You will develop an understanding of how OR, statistical and optimisation techniques are applied to practical problems, and will acquire many key workplace skills. A three-month industrial placement follows successful completion of the instructional component. Programme structure Compulsory modules: Corporate finance; Deterministic OR methods; Presenting reports; Spreadsheet and database modelling; Statistical methods; Stochastic OR methods; Visual basic for applications Optional modules: Constraint satisfaction; Consultancy skills; Credit scoring and data mining; Economics; Financial portfolio theory; Financial risk management; Forecasting; Game theory; Project management; Trends in I T.

Careers: Academia; banks and other financial institutions; statistics/OR practitioners (e.g. in consultancy, defence, government, health, manufacturing, transport).