Bendheim Center for Finance
The Bendheim Center for Finance is an interdisciplinary research center established by Princeton University in 1998.
History
In 1998, Princeton University established the Bendheim Center for Finance. For decades, Princeton has prided itself as a purely academic institution that does not focus on professional careers. To this day, Princeton has no medical school, law school, or business school. The Bendheim Center for Finance was an attempt by Princeton to approach professional training from Princeton's historic academic slant. "Proponents of the program cited similar 'professionally-oriented mathematical and computational finance programs' at Columbia, the University of Chicago and other peer institutions"[1]. Ben Bernanke is credited as the founder of the center.[2]
The former Dial Lodge building became available when the eating club failed, offering prime real estate adjacent to the economics department's building and close to the Operations Research department.
Facilities
The Bendheim Center for Finance is located in former Dial Lodge on Prospect Avenue (known to Princeton students as "The Street" because of the nearby eating clubs). The Bendheim Center for Finance is a 3 floor building.
The first floor contains the BCF's only classroom, a lounge/library, and 2 faculty offices. The second floor contains faculty offices. The third floor contains the office carrels for PhD students of the professors with BCF offices. The basement has a small computer cluster and overflow PhD student office carrels.
Undergraduate certificate
History of the undergraduate certificate
In the fall of 1999, BCF began offering a certificate in finance, awarding the first certificates in June 2000.
Number of certificates awarded per year:
| 2000: 59 | 2001: 82 | 2002: 86 | 2003: 128 | 2004: 134 | 2005: 140 | 2006: 152 |
Masters degree
The Bendheim Center for Finance offers a Masters in Finance (MFin) degree that can be completed in 1 year (10 courses) or 2 years (16 courses). Only students with prior finance training or work experience are admitted to the 1 year option.
For Fall 2006, BCF received over 400 applications for 25 spots. The New York Sun claims that it is a popular alternative to an MBA, particularly for people wishing to go into trading and hedge fund jobs.[3]
History of the MFin degree
The Bendheim Center for Finance began offering a Masters in Finance degree in 2001, awarding the first degrees in June 2002.
Number of MFin degrees awarded per year:
| 2002: X | 2003: X | 2004: X | 2005: 4 | 2006: 18 |
Notable faculty (current and former)
- Ben Bernanke - Federal Reserve Chairman; former Chairman of the U.S. President's Council of Economic Advisers
- Burton Malkiel - former Dean of the Yale School of Management; author of A Random Walk Down Wall Street
- Alan Blinder - former Federal Reserve Vice Chairman
- Yacine Ait-Sahalia
- Rene Carmona
- Daniel Kahneman
References
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
