Rick Duursma

Current position: Risk Manager at Fortis Bank Nederland

'After obtaining my Bachelor's degree in Mathematics from VU University Amsterdam, I opted for the Master's in Stochastics and Financial Mathematics because I wanted to move into finance: shares, indices, prices, options and so on. Stochastics and Financial Mathematics is a well-structured programme; you learn the theory first – the formulas and background – and only later apply that knowledge in practice.'

'The advantage of this programme is its small scale. You have a lot of contact with your fellow students, and with tutors who provide great supervision during your studies. And you can choose subjects from other courses, like Economics or Business Mathematics and Informatics.'

'After my graduation I started working as a Risk Manager for Fortis Bank Nederland Clearing and Custody. This means I’m responsible for the model which is used for calculating the market risk of client portfolios. Due to changing market conditions we constantly have to update our model in order to improve the service towards our clients. Whenever one of our clients decides to trade in a new product, we have to come up with the correct theoretical valuation model which computes realistic risk numbers. It took me about half a year to get acquainted to the language of banking but the knowledge obtained during my studies helped me along the road.'