FAQ

For healthcare see question above. Financial organisations are constantly looking for how to revise products and services to better match the needs and values of their customers and clients. At the same time, they must employ strategies to manage their risk exposure. The volume and diversity of data available to tackle these questions continues to grow rapidly. Statistical data analysis, probability, and optimisation as well as basic mathematical modelling are highly valued skills in this industry. Also, a course such as our Investment Analysis would be required to succeed in a job interview. Employers also value critical thinking in asset management. This will become a new theme for ESD as we refresh our Financial Services specialisation track. Finally, the advent of new technologies such as blockchain is creating the opportunity for new business models in this competitive space. Here is where game theory, economics, and information technology come together. This industry is undergoing rapid transformation and ESD can provide a great pathway into the middle of the action.

The first information revolution hit the manufacturing industry about forty years ago. That industry has changed profoundly as a result. The healthcare industry has been much slower to adapt to this revolution, but the pace of change has been accelerating over the past decade. The opportunities for improvements in healthcare systems are as profound as what manufacturing experienced. We now have the ability to mine patient records, anonymised for privacy, across broad populations and over long time-spans to provide clinical treatment recommendations for dramatically improved patient outcomes. There is much that can be automated, streamlined, monitored, and directed to speed delivery, lower cost, and enhance patient experience. Health organisations are actively seeking professionals who combine deep technical skills of the type ESD provides with basic medical knowledge.

You can choose a pillar based on what you don’t like, in which case I can confirm that we do not rely on physics to the extent that, say, EPD does. However, you are better to choose a pillar based on what makes you excited to get out of bed in the morning. Each of the pillars has plenty to offer on that score to overcome whatever aspect you don’t like. EPD offers the joy of creating tangible products and systems that improve lives. In ESD, we use calculus and linear algebra to a great extent and this may deter some students. But consider the problems we work on, decision-making within large complex systems, and anticipate that it is a real joy to be able to help people solve these problems.

Personally, taking my first course in Optimisation changed my life. The world suddenly made sense to me in a way that resonated with how I could make use of my mathematical aptitude. After that, learning how to manipulate data in creative ways was the next big source of joy. More such delights followed but what has sustained me is that my career has always been client-facing, working with people to solve their problems, and that flavour pervades ESD.

The ESD pillar is not for everyone. Several of our core classes, such as Probability and Optimization, require a solid foundation in calculus and linear algebra. You must be comfortable with a moderate degree of mathematical abstraction. Also, because we emphasize a client-facing curriculum you must be willing to work with your team and your client on ill-defined problems. So those are three reasons not to choose ESD. But flip them around and they become three powerful reasons to follow our curriculum: experience the thrill of applying mathematics to practical problems, use abstraction and generalization to make sense of engineering systems, and work with real clients on real problems for which the solution is not at the back of the textbook. If you need additional reasons, ask around and discover that our students really enjoy their professors and our staff.

ISTD will have a course in block chain which ESD students could take. There will be an small application of block chain technology in the new Financial Systems Design course, a Term 8 elective.

ESD and ISTD are highly complementary. You are better to think in terms of combining the disciplines rather than excluding one or the other. By using University Minors, or the combined Business Analytics specialisation track, or simply taking a course in the other discipline, you can get depth in one field and exposure in the other.

Yes, both pillars offer minors that permit students to devise a blended curriculum. However, not all classes are fully open. For example, ESD students are given priority access to our Data and Business Analytics core class. ISTD students are given priority access to Machine Learning in Term 6. However, ESD offers Statistical and Machine Learning in Term 7, so that should not be an issue. Both pillars have trouble accommodating last minute enrolments in certain courses so, no matter which pillar you belong to, you should take advantage of course enrolment surveys and pre-registration opportunities to ensure you have a seat.

Introduction to Design is foundational for the Engineering Systems Architecture course, a core requirement in ESD. All HASS subjects serve to give the social and historical context for work in ESD. Economics courses in HASS are particularly valuable in ESD (Micro-economics is required). Chemistry and Physics have much less direct application in ESD courses than in EPD courses, but are useful preparation for courses and careers at the intersection of ESD and EPD.