New Graduate Streams Address Canada’s Talent Gap for Big Data and Financial Analytics Professionals

In response to demand across numerous sectors and industries in Canada to recruit, retain and train big data and financial analytic professionals, Trent University is introducing two news streams of study for graduate students in the Applied Modelling and Quantitative Methods (AMOD) graduate program – Big Data Analytics and Financial Analytics.

The two streams will offer graduate students two new competitive options under the AMOD umbrella. The Financial Analytics stream will prepare students with rigorous mathematical, statistical, economic and computing modelling skills, ready to graduate with the ability to apply these skills to the quantitative analysis of industrial, commercial or financial business decisions. The Big Data Analytics stream will prepare students for opportunities in the field of data science and big data analytics.

“Both of these innovative new streams build on our existing multi-disciplinary strengths in the AMOD program and both streams are timely with respect to the current debates in the academic literature,” said Dr. Elaine Scharfe, interim vice-provost and dean of graduate studies at Trent University. “We are pleased that Trent will be one of the first universities in Canada to begin to fill the training gap for professionals in these areas.”

Trent’s move to offer two new streams in the program comes in response to recent significant growth in both fields. In recent years there has been remarkable growth in the use of modelling techniques in the financial industry, creating a demand for graduates with strong quantitative modelling skills. Similarly, the field of data science is growing at a rapid pace, encompassing techniques and skills from application domains, mathematics and computer science.

“These two new streams will complement our existing thesis-based program and will be attractive to a wide variety of students, providing them with extremely competitive skills in today’s job market,” said Dr. Sabine McConnell, director of the AMOD program at Trent. “These two new programs are exciting examples of Trent’s strength for interdisciplinary collaboration.”

Both the Financial Analytics and Big Data Analytics streams will allow students to take more courses and write a research paper that is more practical in nature. Students will use the models, techniques and skills they’ve acquired to solve real-world financial or big data problems.  

The AMOD is a multi-disciplinary graduate program at Trent which encompasses Business, Chemistry, Computing and Information Systems, Economics, Geography and GIS, Humanities, Mathematics, Philosophy, Physics & Astronomy and Psychology.

The Financial Analytics stream was proposed and is supported by a group of faculty members from the department of Mathematics and Economics, while the Big Data Analytics stream was created with the support of the department of Computing and Information Systems.

The cutting-edge program will be accepting students to both streams starting September 2016 with a full or part-time option.

For more information about the AMOD program at Trent and both new stream offerings, visit https://www.trentu.ca/amod/

Posted on December 1, 2015