TisEM - Jochem de Bresser

Nikolaus Schweizer

  • Nikolaus Schweizer

    Nikolaus Schweizer

    Associate professor Department of Econometrics and Operations Research

    ‘ Teaching gives me a chance to spend significant amounts of time with some of the best research of the past and the present.’

Nikolaus was recently nominated for the Teacher of the Year Award.

What are the courses about? What is the common theme?

I am co-teaching three courses at the moment, Asset Liability Management (ALM) and Valuation and Risk Management (VRM) in the Quantitative Finance and Actuarial Science Master and Games and Economic Models (GEM) in the Econometrics and Mathermatical Economics Master. All three courses combine economic or financial applications with a substantial mathematical methods component and some algorithmic or computational tools. Being an applied probabilist by training, I like to think of all three as "very very applied probability theory". ALM and VRM are both courses in continuous-time quantitative finance. Within that field, the focus of VRM is on the pricing and risk management of financial positions, while the focus of ALM is on optimal portfolio choice and related dynamic optimization problems. In GEM, my part of the course is an introduction to auction theory.

 What is important to you in teaching? What do you want your students to remember?

There are some complicated things out there but the vast majority of stuff is relatively simple when you've properly understood it. As long as something looks complicated, you probably haven't understood it well enough yet. Conversely, once you've understood something, it will typically be simple and easy to use and remember. Don't be too worried about encountering things that are so complicated that you really cannot grasp them. These things are super rare and not necessarily very interesting. Try to see the beauty in stuff. You can understand a lot by trying to explain to yourself or others why something is beautiful or logical or useful or funny... That's the type of attitude I am aiming at both in students and in myself. Take stuff seriously, try to make it your own, don't be too easily impressed or scared.

What motivates you?

I am actually something of a fan of most of the material I am teaching. I like to talk about it and convince others of its qualities. More often than not, the insights that become part of undergraduate curricula are insights which - at least in their time - were great answers to problems that people thought were very serious and important. Only a small portion of the very best research ends up being taught in class around the world. Teaching gives me a chance to spend significant amounts of time with some of the best research of the past and the present. I like my own research, too, very much so, but the density of truly brilliant ideas is certainly higher in the material I am teaching.

Who is your great example, when it comes to education?

My own way of teaching combines elements from many of my own favorite teachers, as a kid in school and music school, and later at the university. Obviously, I have learned a lot from Andreas Eberle who was my main teacher from the third year of my undergraduate studies until the end of my PhD. In terms of his dedication to giving your very best both in teaching and in research, he is definitely a great example. He would constantly revise and improve courses, year after year, methodically talking to many, many students to understand the patterns behind their progress.  I have also learned a lot from more experienced co-teachers, like Stefan Ankirchner in Bonn and Bertrand Melenberg here in Tilburg.