Thoughts on "Software Development with C++ for Quantitative Finance"

So today I had my first final exam here at The Hong Kong University of Science & Technology on “Software Development with C++ for Quantitative Finance”.

The overall course experience was good. I didn’t attend all lectures as I had some experience with C++ and did not want any revision of Types, Classes or Templates. The course description even stated “Programming experience” as recommended background. Therefore I had some “free” saturdays.

The homework, although sometimes a bit tedious, was doable and the final project (due on the 22nd) is interesting and holds for some challenging enhancements as well as experience with writing an Excel plugin.

Let us come back to the exam of today. I had some computer science exams at home at Technische Universität München but this was not alike. The exam consisted of a block of multiple choice questions about “best practice”, valid C++ and library calls. After that the fun started. At first we were supposed to calculate the discount factors for a yield curve comparable to the 3rd homework. Not really interesting and it didn’t help to have an old calculator at hand. Further questions were concerning fixing, reading and stating the output of code. I generally hate this exercises. Most of it could have been easy if one had memorized all the code samples from the lecture.

This was different from exams at home in a way that at home I don’t remember seeing the same code in the exam as in the lecture and just filling out the missing parts. From what I remember the exams usually asked more for understanding the code and solving problems with it. Anyway, the exam wasn’t bad and I’m quite happy with the amount of work I put into studying for it. I’m still wondering why there have not been any questions on Templates or the Singleton-Pattern.

Finally, can I recommend that course?
That’s a tricky question. If you had no exposure to C++ before it’s probably a nice course to get your feet wet, especially if you are interested in mathematics at the same time, although only elementary math skills are needed. But there’s a catch, the assignments, even though only a few, are time consuming, especially if you are not experienced with C++. I still think this course was worth it, as I would otherwise have taken an undergraduate course instead.