Testimonials

Here are some recommendations from course attendees and students from banking, industry and academia who have taken Datasim’s regular, in-house and online courses.

I have known Daniel for over 20 years, firstly as a foremost researcher in numerical methods and differential equations. What makes him special, and was apparent from those early days, is his ability to explain concepts clearly and thoroughly, with constant emphasis on examples and practical applications. 
This approach made the online courses Daniel designed  in C++ Programming for Financial Engineering and Advanced C++11/C++14 and Multidisciplinary Applications and offered with the Baruch MFE Program and QuantNet to be among the most successful online offerings worldwide, with people from over 40 countries and all continents completing them.

Dan Stefanica, Baruch College Financial Engineering MS Program Director, City University of New York

FDM is one of the most useful and advanced courses that I have ever taken.  The tools that I learnt were directly applied to value complex derivatives contracts, in an efficient manner using C++, such as convertible bonds and Bermudan callable bonds.  On the other hand, Daniel is an extraordinary tutor that helped me out in every step of the final applied project.

- Jaime Maihuire Irigoyen - Sustainable Investing Research Associate, BlackRock, Inc.

Daniel taught a C++ for finance bootcamp for our MSc in Mathematical Finance. Its success allowed us to get a full C++ module onto the degree. Daniel subsequently supervised the dissertations of some of our best MSc students. In both cases, Daniel pulled up the quality of the degree:  
• on the bootcamp, one of the students was confused by something in a well-known mathematical finance textbook. As Daniel knew its author, he wrote, and the three of them discovered the reason for the error. 
• with the dissertations, not only did Daniel bring industry-related expertise built on solid academic foundations, but he dedicated more time to supervision than internal, university supervisors. Typically, he would connect students with practicing quants, and get dissertations that were head-and-shoulders above other dissertations. 

- Colin Rowat - MSc Math Finance programme director, University of Birmingham, UK.

"Professor Duffy’s course provides a comprehensive look at the Finite Difference Method in financial applications. He was readily accessible and provided a great balance of clear direction with room for independent research."

- Thomas M. - TDM Trading.

The Distance Learning C++ course titled "Advanced C++ - Programming Models, Boost and Parallel Computation" by Datasim Financial provides a comprehensive introduction to the C++ programming language…. Finally module nine draws on Daniel's knowledge and implementation experience to provide an overview of C++ design in practice.
From my numerous attendances of previous courses instructed by Daniel I have found him to be highly knowledgeable, both in C++ and mathematical finance, with strong communication skills & a keen interest in answering challenging questions posed by participants (both during and after the course has finished). I highly recommend his training courses.

- Robert Doubble - Head, Quantitative Analytics, BP Oil International

This is one of the best courses I've taken ever, in this subject or in any subject. The instructors are skillful in that they know how to give you just the right amount of inspiration, information, and guidance, so that you will grasp what is going on in a way that is meaningful for you. If they were to spoon feed you, you wouldn't be encouraged to explore. And explore you will. When you look back on where you started near the end of the course, it's hard to believe the course only happened in a few months. The videos are created in a way that avoids unnecessary fluff so that you get quickly to the essentials of what is needed for the homework, without drudgery. Daniel Duffy, Avi Palley, and Pavlos Sakoglou are friendly and patient, but they avoid coding things for you, which is good. They take suggestions and feedback about the course material, and make updates as needed. The bottom line is you learn a lot about derivatives pricing and how to code pricing tools in a practical way
(www.quantnet.com online C++ course)

- Franklin Hurst

The C++11/C++14 with Multidisciplinary Applications online course is an excellent opportunity to dive in the new features of C++11 and C++14, to get a deep understanding of them, and to advance your programming skills to a whole different level.

The video lectures and the reading material that are provided in each section are more than enough for the students to get the idea of the newly introduced concepts. The reading material consists mostly of whole book chapters of advanced computer science textbooks, which give a deep insight of the presented concepts. The videos, too, are well detailed with many examples and full-comment explanation on the new features.

The homework problems are mainly straightforward questions, with a few exceptional problems in every level. The difficulty is gradual, but no problem is too hard to solve, given the appropriate time and attention. That said, I personally found about 60% of the homework problems to be quite straightforward, 30% of them to be difficult to do, but very doable, and 10% of them to require serious work, but again, doable to pull off.

The quality, intensity, and volume of the homework, ensure the continuous improvement of the students, and I seriously doubt that someone who completes this certificate won't be able to compete in real life and be considered an advanced, master-level programmer.

- Pavlos Sakoglou

My experience with this course has been amazing. The course is challenging and comprehensive, but at the same time, the lectures and the phenomenal support provided by the TAs made sure that I understood everything. Moreover, the discussion forums are filled with discussions on every aspect of every concept, so that one just needs to look to get any doubts cleared. When I started the course, I felt daunted by the breadth of the material covered in it, but looking back now, it's feels incredible that in the end, I managed to learn the entire thing in such depth, as have many others who chose to take this course. A big thanks to Professor Duffy, Avi, Pavlos and the other TA's.

- MFE student, USA

I have had the privilege of being the teaching assistant for Dr. Daniel Duffy's online C++ courses on Quantnet.com, for more than seven years. These courses have been wildly successful in educating thousands of students, across the globe, in C++. The courses have benefited students/professionals in many fields: Engineering, Finance, Mathematics, Accounting, Computer Science, Law, and others. These are self-paced courses, with an experienced, dedicated TA who answers questions and gives detailed feedback on every student's code submissions.

The first course (C++ Programming for Financial Engineering) is very well structured and covers beginner/intermediate C++ topics: C/C++, OOP, inheritance, polymorphism, templates, STL, Boost, design. The course material, created by Dr. Duffy, has a proven track record of turning non-programmers into proficient C++ coders in under 16 weeks.

The advanced course (Advanced C++11/C++14 and Multidisciplinary Applications) takes C++ to the next level. It covers topics such as variadic/functional programming, parallel programming, type traits, Boost, and STL. It also has a major focus on advanced design patterns. The material is very well researched and has helped many students and professionals bring their C++ skills to the cutting edge.

In my time working with Dr. Duffy, I have been extremely impressed by his unparalleled depth of knowledge, ability to convey complex concepts to students (in books and videos), awareness of the latest R&D in the field, humility, sense of humor, and profound love for educating others. I strongly recommend others to read his books and take his courses.

- Avi Palley, NYC

"Actually I've searched a few PDE online courses, most of them are not closely connected to computational finance, while the DataSim course is designed for it and very well structured."

- Prospective MFE student

Since I started to work in investment bank, I have attended to several C++ and C# training courses held by Mr. Duffy. During these courses, Daniel has been able to outline - not only the most essential issues of a language itself - but what I consider the most important issue in programming: design patterns. In other words, how to create truly flexible, extendable and reconfigurable programs. Armed with this knowledge acquired from these training courses, I have been practically able to learn and resolve many of those not-so-designed-legacy-programs we all have to deal with on a daily basis. As a person, Daniel has that special intellectual curiosity and drive, which makes him truly motivating instructor.

- Mikael Katajamäki, Senior Risk Analyst, Market and Liquidity Risk, Nordic Investment Bank.

"Studying mathematics alone is extremely difficult, especially for those who have no mathematical background, just like me. Daniel Duffy helped me to find a way to think logically and gave me a clear vision, how we can solve practical problems in the mathematical way. Since I took his mathematics course, I became a big fan of Daniel, which made me take C++ course in QuantNet. As a student studying Data science, this combination is such a great choice. Mathematics helped the logical design mechanism of programming, and coding skills encouraged me to think about the limitations and computational efficiency and effectiveness.
Those who are considering taking these courses from Daniel Duffy, I highly recommend to enrol. Daniel will support you on one to one basis !. But of course, the most important thing is to be focused and endeavor !"

Beomcheol Kim

"I could tell why the course is famous and recommended by the renowned MFE programs. The homework questions are well-organized and extremely helpful in learning important C++ concepts. Although the homeworks were challenging for me, as a beginner in C++, I found the time investment worthwhile and I believe they will be valuable in pursuing my career in quant finance. I wholeheartedly recommend this course to anyone interested in learning C++ from Quantnet and Baruch."