Master of Science in Finance
The MSF program at The University of Alabama is a one-year intensive program.
The University of Alabama's Department of Economics, Finance and Legal Studies has a rigorous one-year Master of Science in Finance that equips students with the skills necessary to excel in today's financial marketplace.
The MSF program uniquely focuses on the needs of modern financial management.
The MSF program offers a specialized curriculum with focused training in finance. The course of study is designed to provide insight into the following topics: 1) The important role of financial intermediaries, 2) The management of financial intermediaries and an understanding of the markets in which they participate, 3) The valuation of financial assets such as stocks, bonds, derivatives, and other specialized assets, and how they are managed in a portfolio, 4) The determination and behavior of interest rates and rates of return on assets, 5) The incentives and determinants of corporate behavior.
The MSF program is designed to offer advanced applied, and theoretical expertise in investments, banking, corporate finance, and/or financial engineering.
The Financial Policy Track within the Master of Science in Finance is available to students with a strong quantitative background. This track is designed to offer advanced applied expertise in financial decision making. The main focus of this track is analyzing and solving financial and strategic business problems. Students selecting this concentration will have the opportunity to apply financial concepts to real world business problems focusing on areas of business finance that are often not addressed in undergraduate finance curricula. This program is designed to provide students with the more advanced background necessary to work in the problem solving area in a major corporation, in the business consulting area with an investment banking firm, or in setting up and running the financial aspects of a small business enterprise.
The financial risk strategy track within the MSF program addresses modern techniques for managing financial risk. Students selecting this track are trained in state-of-the-art techniques for valuing and using derivative securities, with a particular emphasis on mortgage-backed securities, structured notes and computer-based solution design within an object-oriented framework. Many financial firms have recognized the growing importance of harnessing technology in their firms' strategies. We seek to prepare students for this changing environment.
The real estate track is designed to provide students interested in real estate related careers with a rigorous background in real estate fundamentals, including real estate finance, valuation, real estate taxation and investment analysis. Students will also be introduced to property management and land use and development concepts in order to support multiple career development paths.
Interdisciplinary courses covering asset and portfolio analysis, banking, quantitative methods, and economics support the real estate track, which is structured to encourage analytical thinking, creative problem solving, and strategic decision making.
The University of Alabama is committed to fostering a cutting-edge educational environment.
We strive to accomplish this by matching state-of-the-art facilities with outstanding faculty and students. Recently, The Journal of Finance ranked The University of Alabama finance program 36th out of 330 business colleges in the area of research productivity for the years 1989-93. Facilities include the Angelo Bruno Business Library and Sloan Y. Bashinsky, Sr. Computer Center, which offer continuously updated resources for study and research and hundreds of computers for student use; Bidgood Hall, the business school's traditional home since 1919, which was recently renovated to provide spacious, modern, multimedia classrooms; and Alston Hall, home to the Culverhouse College of Commerce and Business Administration's faculty and professional staff offices, as well as four large lecture classrooms.