No IT experience required for UCL fintech degree

The Financial Times yesterday included a supplement on financial training which featured an article on a fintech degree offered by University College London (UCL).

The university's MSc in Financial Computing was launched last year in partnership with Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley. UCL's technology partner for the progamme is Reuters, which has providedlive data feeds, software and training for a virtual trading floor set up for the students.

The first lot of students began the course last year but not one of them is a computer science graduate. In fact, according to the admission criteria, entrants must have a good first degree in "any discipline that does not include substantial IT or computer science".

Arvinder Mudhar, CTO of investment banking technology at Merrill Lynch, told the FT that the course is deliberately marketed to people without a traditional computing background in the hope of recruiting students with a "different level of creativity".

The first intake of 45 students included graduates with first degrees in more than 20 disciplines, including law, pharmacy and interestingly, journalism. Moreover, 45% of the first intake is female - much higher than the 20% originally expected.

Staying with the FT, the paper is reporting how due to an acute shortage of qualified engineers, German companies such as Siemens and Bosch are providing kindergartens with materials and money to teach children about technology and science.

Maria Schumm-Tschauder, head of Siemens' Generation21 education programme, told FT reporters that starting at school is not good enough and children need to be targeted much earlier. Siemens has provided around 3000 so-called "discovery boxes" - costing EUR500 each and filled with science materials - to kindergartens across Germany in the hope of that some children will opt for an engineering career as a result.

Apparently Bosch is even sending apprentices to kindergartens to talk to kids about careers in engineering. Franz Fehrenbach, Bosch's chief executive, told the FT that "Germany is based on innovation - and that needs people".

Companies are also trying to get more girls interested in the industry and working with technical colleges to help train and recruit students.

The FT quotes a chairman of a large German industrial group who - when commenting on the shortage of engineering - said that Germany would be the real loser, not industry.

"We can go to Asia to find our engineers," he said.