Tsz Chung WUN

BSc in Risk Management Science
Ernst & Young Advisory Services Limited

It was a pleasure to work as a risk advisory intern in the Financial Service Risk Management Department of Ernst & Young Advisory Services Limited from January to April 2018.

I participated in a famous local bank project during the programme. The scope of this project involved developing an internal-rating-based (IRB) system that included several scorecards, and calculating the probability of default (PD), exposure at default (EAD), loss given default (LGD) and risk-weighted assets.

I was assigned some easy tasks in the first two weeks, such as preparing the presentation materials and writing model documents. After the honeymoon period, I assisted with the SAS program and Excel tasks. It was difficult for me to use SAS because I had no prior knowledge of the program. When working on the primary stages of a certain project, things can change very quickly and dramatically. Fortunately, my supervisor was nice and patient when offering explanations. I caught up quickly and assisted with the SAS work.

During the project, I had to apply the statistics and programming knowledge I had acquired from lectures. I was happy to use all of my theoretical knowledge and apply it to real‐life situations, such as using an F-test to separate the dataset, reading the regression outcome from SAS and writing a VBA program for a different task.

I also acquired new knowledge of the elements of credit risk (PD, LGD and EAD) and the risk management system in a commercial bank. I had a chance to familiarise myself with the VBA and SAS programs, which will be useful in my future career. Before my first day at Ernst & Young, I knew nothing about credit risk. I would never have known how the IRB system works if I had not interned there.

Overall, my work experience at Ernst & Young was positive and meaningful. I am happy with many of the things I learned and experienced during my four and a half months as a risk advisory intern with the company. I believe my experience at Ernst & Young improved my abilities and gave me insight into Hong Kong’s risk management and compliance industry. 

Chung Tin KOO

BSc in Risk Management Science
McGill University, Canada

It has been a wonderful experience for me to participate in the exchange programme at McGill University. I have participated in plenty of exchange activities. During the first week of arrival, McGill University provided some orientation activities for exchange students. The most valuable one was an orientation brunch. It was an event that offers a free meal and enabled exchange students to meet each other.

There were some courses that I think it is worth taking at McGill University. I took a mathematical finance course during my studies. It was a course that reviewed basic concepts of derivative pricing, and then get into the introduction of measure and probability theory, and also some more advanced discrete and continuous time mathematical models with applications in option pricing. In other words, it was like an elementary version of the stochastic calculus course offered by the CUHK RMSC programme. I was able to grab some basic stuff on this topic so that it will benefit my studies in the future. I found that the lessons in McGill and CUHK are quite different. The professor did not upload any lecture notes on the platform. Instead, he just wrote the notes on the blackboard to let students copy them. This can greatly encourage students to attend lessons. It would be hard to catch up if someone try to skip lessons.

In addition, the exchange programme benefits much on my personal growth. I have tried a lot of new stuff. For staying abroad, cooking dishes oneself is common. It means that was a chance for me to learn cooking. At first, I started up with some basic dishes like a simple spaghetti mixing with prepared pasta sauce. When I get used to it, I found cooking was fun and relaxing. Then I tried to cook some more advanced cuisines like lasagna and rib-eye steak. It was nice to build up a new hobby during this period. And I have traveled to many places to explore around the world. Opportunities were given to me to obtain some once in a lifetime experiences, like watching an NBA playoff semi-final in Toronto.

Moreover, the exchange programme provided me new inspirations towards my life and future goals. It was a precious opportunity for me to study abroad for one semester, to try something new or cannot happen in Hong Kong. I truly believe that one should treasure the opportunity when they are given a chance to do something different.