Undergraduate Certificate
Independent Work Requirement
In addition to completing the core and elective courses, students must write independent work in finance. A grade of C or above is required for all independent work.
- ECO majors must write a senior thesis with significant finance content.
- ORF majors must write either a senior thesis (ORF 478) or an independent project (ORF 479) deemed equivalent by the ORFE department. In either case, the independent work must contain significant finance content.
- Certificate students concentrating in other departments will normally be expected to incorporate finance into a senior thesis or junior paper in their respective departments, under the direct supervision of a faculty member assigned to them by their department.
There is a wide range of possibilities for topics that could satisfy both the program and a department. Some examples: in Art and Archaeology, art prices as reflections of changing cultural and aesthetic tastes; in Civil and Environmental Engineering, the financial feasibility of wind farms; in English, literary portrayals of the social effects of economic depression; in History, the history of the Japanese stock exchange; in Music, the funding of 18th century composers; in Politics, the changing character of securities regulation; in Psychology, any topic in behavioral finance.
The Program Representative (PR) can provide advice about the suitability of proposed topics.
The program will also admit a small number of students who cannot reasonably incorporate finance into a piece of independent work in their respective departments. In such cases, independent work will be done in conjunction with one of the two core courses ECO 362 and ECO 363, and completed by the end of the Fall term of the senior year at the latest. The PR will assign an advisor to each student. The project represents separate and additional work from what is required in ECO 362 and 363 and will receive a letter grade separate from the ECO 362 and 363 course grades.
In all cases, the primary thrust of the independent work is issues or methods drawn from finance:
The independent work must be completed by:
- The end of the Fall semester of the senior year for a paper;
- The end of the Spring semester of the senior year for a senior thesis.
Students must submit to the PR a brief status report just after the mid-term break and a copy of the completed work (graded and including the advisor's comments) at end of the term in which the work is due.
After the final version of their thesis or paper is submitted, the PR will request from the thesis or paper advisor confirmation that the work did indeed include finance as described in the earlier agreement. Faculty advisors who are uncertain about whether the finance requirement has been satisfied are encouraged to ask the PR for her opinion.