Credential program on the practitioner path
Foundation Certificate in Computational Finance
The entry quantitative finance certificate, and the opening stage of both the Professional Diploma and the Fellowship. Six courses that settle the mathematics, statistics, data and market knowledge every later course assumes, closed by a capstone.
Most people who struggle in quantitative finance courses do not struggle with finance. They struggle because their probability is rusty, their statistics stopped at a regression table, or their code cannot load and clean a price series. This quantitative finance certificate fixes those things first, and then shows how they come together in a rule-based trading system.
What does the Foundation Certificate cover?
The mathematics of the field: calculus, optimization and linear algebra. Probability and statistics with the traps of financial data, fat tails, dependence and multiple testing, and the econometrics used to test claims about markets. The working toolkit of Python and SQL for prices and returns. How the markets and their instruments actually work. And a first strategy, from rule to backtest to honest result.
Who should take it?
Engineers and scientists new to finance, finance graduates whose quantitative training is thin, and anyone planning the Professional Diploma or the Fellowship who wants the groundwork settled before anything else.
The courses in this program
- Mathematics for Quantitative Finance: Calculus and Linear Algebra The calculus, linear algebra, optimization and differential equations that pricing, risk and portfolio models are built on, revised and applied to finance. It also teaches the linear algebra for finance behind portfolios and factor models.
- Probability for Quantitative Finance, with Statistics The probability every quant course assumes: distributions, expectation, conditioning and the limit theorems, with each idea tested on real return data. It also teaches the statistics for finance that every model rests on.
- Time Series Analysis and Financial Econometrics The time series methods behind trading signals and risk forecasts: stationarity, autocorrelation, ARMA models, unit roots, volatility clustering and honest forecast evaluation. It also teaches financial econometrics: regression, its failures and their fixes.
- Python and SQL for Finance A Python for finance course with the Python every later course assumes: loading and cleaning market data with pandas, computing returns and risk with NumPy, plotting, and writing code another person can rerun. It also teaches SQL for finance, so your data lives in a database rather than in files.
- Financial Markets and Instruments A financial markets course for people who will build models of markets: what each instrument is, who trades it, where and how it trades, and what happens between the click and the settled position.
- Algorithmic Trading Foundations: From Idea to Paper to Live An algorithmic trading course on the working basics: how electronic markets match orders, the order types an algorithm uses, three simple strategy families, the costs of trading, and a first backtest you can defend. It also teaches paper trading, and how to decide when a strategy is ready for real money.
What every course contains
Every paid course comes with the first seven and the certificate, whichever level it sits at. The proctored exam and the credential come when the course is taken as part of a Certificate, Diploma or Fellowship. Everything is self-paced: the material is yours to study in any order, at any hour, for the whole of the license.
- Workbooks. Written to train the thinking patterns and the important concepts of the course, with worked problems and the reasoning behind each answer, so that you learn to think the way the subject is thought.
- Audio edition. Focused, well-presented recordings with explainers and examples of the material, made to be interesting, relevant and entertaining, so that the general subject can be learned away from the desk.
- Notes. Pre-produced notes with every fact the course relies on, written out in full, so that nothing has to be transcribed from the films or the audio.
- Cheat sheet. One sheet with every important learning concept of the course on it, to keep beside you during the work and to revise from before the exam.
- Named sources. Every fact in the notes names its source, the paper, the book or the dataset, for anyone who wants to dig in further.
- Explainer films. Focused films, in the style of the sample films on the catalog page, that walk through the most difficult concepts of the course with visual explanations of a high standard.
- Transcript. A full transcript of every film and every audio recording, searchable and quotable.
- Proctored exam. Taken as part of a Certificate, Diploma or Fellowship, the course ends in a proctored multiple-choice questionnaire, with a pass mark of 60% and three retakes included. A course taken on its own is assessed by its coursework and has no exam.
- Verifiable certificate. A certificate of completion that a third party can verify: an employer sends the code on it to the credentials office and receives written confirmation of the course, the date and the result.
- Credential of the program. The Certificate, Diploma or Fellowship of the program, track or path the course belongs to, awarded when every course in it is passed. Which one depends on the program you choose.
What is the foundation capstone?
You take a set of daily prices for a market of your choice, load and clean it with Python and SQL, describe its returns and risk, and test one stated hypothesis about it with the statistics and econometrics of the certificate. The submission is the notebook and a report of about 2,500 words. The faculty assess it against published criteria: whether the data work is sound, whether the test answers the question asked, and whether the conclusion stays within the evidence.
What does the credential record?
It records that you passed the proctored exam of every course listed on this page and the capstone, assessed by the Institute's faculty. The credential is issued by the Institute. Each one carries a verification code that an employer can check with the credentials office.
Questions applicants ask
Do I need this certificate before a specialist certificate?
No. It is the recommended start if your mathematics, statistics or Python are not yet secure. If you can already meet the outcomes listed on each course page, start with a specialist certificate.
Does this certificate count toward anything else?
Yes. It is the opening stage of the Professional Diploma in Algorithmic Trading and of the Fellowship in Computational Finance. A course passed once counts everywhere it appears.
How long does the certificate take?
68 hours of material across the six courses, each hour with its audio edition and workbook, and a capstone of 20 hours of your own work. The license runs 12 months, so you set the pace around a job.