Graduate Certificate in Mutual Fund Management

Mutual funds are critical building blocks of wealth for individuals and organizations—both of whom need knowledgeable fund managers to maximize value and achieve their long-term goals. When you earn your Graduate Certificate in Mutual Fund Management, you'll develop the skills you need to manage a portfolio of assets successfully—in just four or five courses.

Graduate Certificate in Mutual Fund Management Program Overview

Program Overview: 4–5 courses
Class Schedule: Monday–Thursday evenings at 5:20 p.m. and 7:30 p.m; you may also take one course online
Time to Complete: 1 to 3 years

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Unique Features

12 or 15

Credits may be applied toward a future MBA

Top 50

Among national universities (U.S. News & World Report)

Learn the essentials of managing fund investments—including analyzing markets, assessing and managing risk, allocating assets, maintaining compliance, and following ethical standards
Specialize your studies with electives that are relevant to your goals, such as market analysis or fixed income securities
Build applied financial experience by joining the student management team of the 360 Huntington Fund—a real fund in Northeastern's endowment—and researching and presenting your own stock recommendations to a panel of your peers
Complete applied projects and analyze case studies—key components of Northeastern's practice-oriented approach to learning
Access expert career guidance from an experienced counselor at Northeastern's office of Employer Engagement and Career Design
Build the foundation for a future master's degree from Northeastern—you may be able to apply your earned certificate credits toward an eligible master's program

'Just In Time' Learning

'Stackable' Credentials

Admissions

GMAT Required? No.
Where do I apply? Apply using this application.
Interview required? Upon request
Pre-requisite for admission? A U.S. Bachelor's degree or equivalent with a major in business administration or a related field with a GPA of at least 3.0 as well as two years work experience in finance

Helpful guides

Application Checklist

Need guidance on completing your application? The application checklist provides step-by-step instructions and tips from our admissions team.

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Personal Statement Guide

Need guidance in composing the personal statement for your application? The essay guide will help you organize your thoughts and draft your copy.

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For Boston campus students, there are three entry terms each year in January, May, and September. For online students, there are six entry terms throughout the year.

Deadlines & Decisions

Find the deadlines and decision dates you need to know. Submit your application by the earliest date possible for priority consideration.

Please visit the Northeastern Student Financial Services page. Click the dropdown under “Graduate Programs” and you'll find the cost per credit listed next to “D'Amore-McKim School of Business Programs.”

At Northeastern, we value and celebrate diversity in all its forms and strive to foster an inclusive culture built on respect that affirms inter-group relations and builds community, which is vital to learning and discovery.

Clubs and Organizations

Northeastern has many opportunities for you to be engaged with our community. Examples include the following:

Graduate Students of Color Collective

The purpose of the GSCC is to build community for graduate students of color at Northeastern University by promoting education, professionalism, and civic duty. The GSCC fosters student, staff, and faculty relationships to establish a campus home for higher education at Northeastern. Through civic engagement with surrounding communities, the GSCC recognizes the continued struggles of marginalized populations, and the need for those who have succeeded to give back.

Grad Q

Grad Q is a student organization for LGBTQ+ graduate students at Northeastern. Grad Q is focused on building community, social events, advocacy, and mentoring undergraduate students.

Campus Resources

We have a number of cultural centers on campus to support our campus community by providing programs, lectures, and events for students with a range of affiliations and interests including the LGBTQA Resource Center, Office of Global Services, Latinx Student Cultural Center, Asian American Center, and many more.

View All Campus Resources

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Curriculum

The coursework for the Graduate Certificate in Mutual Fund Management explores cutting-edge approaches for creating and managing successful portfolios of mutual funds or hedge funds.

In your required coursework, you'll learn how to create value in a competitive, dynamic global business environment, developing skills in quantitative and analytical methods for financial management. The electives you choose will broaden your knowledge in areas such as investment analysis, fixed income securities and risk, and portfolio management.

Required course*

Highlights the role of financial management as a source of value creation in a competitive global environment characterized by rapid technological, personal, and market changes. Offers students an opportunity to develop tools and techniques of financial analysis and valuation to support financial decision making. Presents future managers with actual business problems to learn to apply the tools of financial analysis to strategic decisions faced by the firm, such as capital budgeting and capital structure.
FINA 6200 | 3 credits

*This course may be waived if you completed a Bachelors in business administration or a related field.

Complete 3 or 4 elective courses from the following

Introduces the domestic and international financial system and the institutions within it. Develops data and quantitative analysis tools utilized for economic and financial modeling and analysis. Emphasis is on regression analysis and its application, including how to build and interpret statistical models. Topics include the major types of financial institutions that operate within the global economy and the financial instruments employed by them; how exchange rates, interests rates, and security prices are determined and how they affect the global economy; and how governments and central banks impact economic and financial conditions.
FINA 6202 | 3 credits

Familiarizes students with domestic and international financial markets and the securities traded therein. Discusses a variety of techniques for valuation of financial assets and relies heavily on quantitative methods. Critically analyzes such qualitative concepts as market efficiency, intrinsic value, and risk. The contents of this course, descriptive, theoretical, and applied, should provide students with the ability to build unique valuation models to suit the particular investment alternative they wish to scrutinize. Also provides students with an understanding of how investment theory and investment practice relate.
FINA 6203 | 3 credits

Exposes students to theory, applications, and evidence concerning highly sensitive interest rate products. Discusses recent developments in pension fund management, asset/liability management, duration matching, “gap” management, concurrent interest rate and exchange rate management, and other important issues now confronting domestic and international financial and corporate management. Studies how to customize a risk management program.
FINA 6212 | 3 credits

Develops portfolio construction, revision, and performance measurement. Highlights portfolio construction in an efficient capital market. Topics include risk-return analysis, the effects of diversification on risk reduction, and the costs of inflation, taxes, and transaction costs on fixed income and equity security portfolios. Examines financial models of capital asset pricing as the basis for the analysis of portfolios from the institutional investor's viewpoint.
FINA 6219 | 3 credits

Introduces a variety of operating documents typical to an active mutual fund. Offers students an opportunity to apply lessons from investment and portfolio management classes by presenting investment recommendations to a panel and communicating with peers in a thoughtful and forceful manner. Investment decisions are made based on student analysis and recommendations that include knowledge of macroeconomic expectations, corporate financing issues, dept-repayment concerns, and employee and technological changes.
FINA 6360 | 1 credit
– – – –
Builds on FINA 6360. Designed to provide students further analytical knowledge, including exposure to and opportunity to perform managerial tasks related to the management and operation of mutual funds. Included in these tasks are reconsideration of the fund's investment policy statement and asset allocation plan as well as preparation of accounting statements, dealing with compliance issues, addressing ethical concerns, measuring and managing risk, and performing marketing and fund-raising activities.
FINA 6361 | 1 credit

The curriculum is subject to change by D'Amore-McKim faculty. Course offerings may vary by semester.

“The finance courses are relevant to the current moment and offer so much more than what a textbook alone can teach you. . . . Starting with the milestone of a graduate certificate, with the option to carry credits forward into a future master's degree, gave me the confidence to get started.”
Jyo Mohapatra, Graduate Certificate Student '21