MS Financial Engineering Personal Purpose Statement
- Robert Edinger
- Jul 3, 2024
- 3 min read
Updated: 2 days ago

I am a young Chinese woman deeply passionate about the art of financial engineering. I am eager to pursue a long and highly productive career in the banking or securities sector. I would love to serve as a bank analyst. At just 26, I have already gained valuable experience through an internship with Chengdu Construction Bank. I have a strong affinity for research and have thoroughly enjoyed every project I've undertaken, which has helped me maintain an excellent GPA. Spending three years in Europe has prepared me well for graduate studies at XXU.
I developed a keen interest in Financial Mathematics while studying options, futures, and derivatives, and through my own research into their complex relationships with futures. Some of my most enjoyable moments have been learning how to set up hedges for both long- and short-term goals and selecting the right types of futures contracts, with a focus on minimizing risk. Throughout my studies, I have honed a critical thought process and a solid foundation in research methods, which will enable me to excel in your esteemed program.
I am eagerly anticipating an intensive immersion experience in your program, where I can spend countless hours with numerical methods like Matlab, stochastic processes, and time series analyses. I am passionate about studying classical methods of portfolio selection and capital asset pricing models. I conducted an independent study using Matlab to explore financial toolboxes, constructing "efficient frontiers" and optimal weights for portfolio optimization. Soon, I plan to use Quant for analyzing financial engineering problems, integrating algorithms and software.
For my thesis project, I worked with mean-variance and mean-VaR approaches, deriving efficient frontiers with a mean-VaR model and comparing the two models in Excel for the financial market. This project was particularly rewarding as it allowed me to consolidate my skills in calculation, programming, statistical inference, differential equations, and portfolio optimization in Excel and time series with R. My research further deepened my commitment and motivation to excel in financial mathematics research, and I am excited to learn more about financial software tools.
During my last semester, I was selected as an exchange student in the US, where I had the opportunity to study statistics in depth and continue exploring probability models through advanced courses. These courses provided invaluable insight into a wide range of probability models and their applications in finance. The highlight of my experiences was attending the Financial Engineering Practitioners Seminar, where I learned from leading Wall Street and industry practitioners as they presented their research.
My undergraduate education at XXXX University has provided me with an excellent analytical foundation in finance, with an innovative specialization in mathematics, as the program ranks #1 in financial mathematics among undergraduate programs in Sweden. I am determined to study at XXU because I consider it the best program in Europe, particularly in mathematics and computer science. I greatly admire your faculty's collaboration in balancing theoretical instruction and practice, offering a half-year internship in the final year of studies.
As a Chinese woman, I look forward to contributing to the diversity of your academic community. I am eager to join your program and give it my all. After completing my master's degree, I plan to work in investment banking and securities, and I am convinced that your state-of-the-art program is the best one to launch my career.
I sincerely thank you for considering my application.
MS Financial Engineering Personal Purpose Statement






This review reads as an exceptionally strong and polished endorsement of the applicant’s statement. It highlights the depth, clarity, and intentionality behind the narrative while capturing the applicant’s intellectual maturity and professional promise. What makes it especially effective is the way it traces the evolution of genuine curiosity into a purposeful commitment to financial engineering, showing that the applicant’s interest is not superficial but rooted in thoughtful engagement with real‑world financial events and systemic vulnerabilities.
The review does an excellent job emphasizing the applicant’s initiative—private research, independent study, and hands‑on experience at Citi Bank—framing these efforts as evidence of both motivation and readiness for advanced study. It also underscores the applicant’s nuanced understanding of the field’s dual demands: technical mastery…