ShruggingSheep

I've seen a few posts around here disparaging EMS - saying it's BS, Emergency Major Switch etc. It seems more demanding compared to simple OR, and with the additional 9-point management elective requirement, you can practically create an econ minor for yourself.

EMS makes you take micro/macro already, and you take 3 upper level econ classes to fulfil the management electives = econ minor. All that's missing is econometrics. Am I counting wrongly here?

Moreover, with the 12-point technical electives, you could take 4307 Forecasting, 4407 Game Theoretic Models, 4500 Application Programming for FE, and 4700 Intro to FE. That's almost all the FE required courses except for 4620 Pricing Models for FE and 4630 Applied FE.

Of course, the actual FE major will be more in-depth, but my point is that you can make the EMS major work for you (or is it the other way around?) Though an EMS major might not get all the upper-level FE courses, the FE major stops at econometrics and doesn't get the upper-level econ courses.

As if that wasn't enough, is there a way to fit in an Applied Math minor too? All the IEOR math sequences stop at ODE, and I'd like to get a more solid math foundation.

Any advice from the usual suspects? Anyone doing this? Anyone know anyone doing this? Thanks!

lynda

ok there's nothing wrong with the program EMS itself, what gained that reputation is the way that people have been using the program for (and yes Emergency major switch describes it pretty well, it's basically been a drop down major for other departments.. espcially EE)

this is because of the flexibility of the curriculum. you can easily get through EMS taking the fluffiest courses offered in SEAS and graduate with a BS w/o having much quantitative skill at all (comparing to other SEAS majors) or you can really take the program seriously and design a program thats both challenging quantitatively yet rewarding with the management perspective.

EMS's loose enough of a major that you could fit in a minor and still stay under credit limit as long as you get on track from freshmen year. ( I orginally had a plan for ems in 3 years that only required 24 credits for 1 semester)

personally I like both ems and FE. I like FE as a subject and the intergration of programming techniques into a quantative field (although the undergraduate program dont give you much of that). and I love EMS's flexibility

both goes pretty well with an econ minor btw

Skraylor

i'm going to take issue with this just because there really is no other "foundation" for math except for maybe linear algebra. after that and ODE you will pretty much know everything you will ever need to unless you go to grad school. yes partial differential eqs are used extensively in econ but that doesnt mean you need to know how to make them

ShruggingSheep

Hey lynda, thanks for the reply. You said one could fit a minor into EMS and still be under credit limit - does that mean one could actually fit in two minors?

I was thinking of doing EMS, using my management electives (9 pts) on econ classes to make up a minor, using the technical electives (12 pts) on basic FE classes AND doing an applied math minor on the side. If I could do all this without killing myself, I feel it would be an interesting mix.

I mean, FE is fascinating and all, but I'm not sure if I want to pigeonhole myself into such a specialized field so early...

Edit: Didn't see Skraylor's post. Maybe "foundation" wasn't the best way to put it. I just really like math and want to see how far I can go with it.

Denzera

it's still Engineering Made Simple. whether or not the courses, objectively speaking, are rigorous, you are in classes with the students who are the least motivated or who push themselves the least. I realize that's not saying much - it's kinda like calling someone the least ambitious member of the House of Representatives - but at least part of the point of a school like Columbia is being in an atmosphere with the smartest most motivated people you can find, who will push you to a new level academically.

If you really like math and want to see how far you can go with it, do Applied Math (as I did), and minor in econ or CS or even OR if you're really into that stuff. Plenty of leeway for electives in the AM curriculum.

yayatime

If I'm not mistaken, I believe that the founder of CU Snacks was an EMS major. I guess that must show he had some significant time leftover to start up such a thing, but I'd like to question whether or not the majority of EMS majors lack motivation. Is the major that much of cake walk? From what I can tell it opens up more opportunity to take finance related courses from the economics department. Does anyone know which Investment Banking firms people from this major go onto? I only know that the CU snack founder will be starting at citi soon...

Skraylor

for the most part, investment banks dont care if you have taken loads of econ courses. the only reason they hire engineers is because eng's are supposed to have superior quantitative skills as compared to other people. learning game theory or how to model a market may be interesting and whatnot but to an ibank all they care about is a great gpa.

Columbia2002

What's CU Snacks?

wifey99999999

You are from Columbia, and you never heard of CU Snack?

wifey99999999

If you don't know CU Snacks...

And yes, the guy who started CU Snakcs is EMS major...

http://www.ieor.columbia.edu/alumni-...n/student.html

Columbia2002

If I graduated in 2002, and this guy graduated in 2006 and started the company while he was at CU.... connect the dots.

It looks like the cusnacks.com website isn't operable anymore...