Examples of Applied Areas

According to the study guide you need to collect 10 CP in an applied area. On this page, we give examples and counterexamples for lectures that are valid for this category. The (fictitious) examples are illustrated with courses offered at the ETH.
In general, the course should put emphasis on one (not many) applied science and must not be purely concerned with statistical methodology.

More precisely, they must not be courses that are offered as core courses or mathematical-statistical electives. Moreover, they must not be offered by the Math Department except for courses on Finance or Insurance which put emphasis on applied aspects of finance and insurance.

The Applied Area is NOT mentioned anywhere on the diploma.

Use the incredible resources of the ETH, feel free to put together your personalized Applied Area! The following examples should inspire you. Note, however, that you have to double check with the course catalogue, that the courses below are currently not categorized in a different category. The course catalogue is binding wrt categories.

You might consult the list of Interdisciplinary Electives from the MSc Data Science for further inspiration.

Examples that are valid

1. Applied Area: Bioinformatics:
   

   Molecular Evolution,
       Phylogenetics and Phylodynamics (4 CP)
   Computational Systems Biology (6 CP)

2. Applied Area: Biology:
   

   Evolutionary Dynamics (5 CP)
   Microbiology Part 1 (3 CP)
   Computational Systems Biology (6 CP)

3. Applied Area: Psychometrie at UZH (German):
   

   Seminar IRT (3 CP)
   Seminar SEM (3 CP)
   Gästekolloquium KOG (1 CP)
   Vorlesung Testtheorie (3 CP)

4. Applied Area: Insurance::

   Life Insurance Mathematics(*) (4 CP)
   Risk Theory for Insurance(*) (4 CP)
   Principles of Microeconomics (3 CP)

   (*): although in Math Department valid, since course on Finance or Insurance with emphasis on applications.
   
   
5. Applied Area: Finance & Economy:

   Psychological Aspects of Risk Management and Technology (3 CP)
   Corporate Finance (3 CP)
   Economic Foundations for Finance(*) (4 CP) 

   (*): although in Math Department valid, since course on Finance or Insurance with emphasis on applications.
   
   
6. Applied Area: Politics:

   Experimental Game Theory (3 CP)
   Science, Technology and Public Policy (3 CP)
   Advanced Computational Modeling of Social Systems (2 CP)

7. Applied Area: Social Science:
   

   Social Network Analysis (4 CP)
   Sampling Techniques  (3 CP)
   Experimental Game Theory (3 CP)

8. Applied Area: Climate Science:

   Climate Systems (3 CP)
   Land-Climate Interactions (3 CP)
   Dynamics of Large-Scale Atmospheric Flow (4 CP)

Examples that are NOT valid

1. Applied Area: ???:
   

   Music Theory             (3 CP)
   Biology 1                (3 CP)
   Economics 1              (4 CP)

   NOT VALID: Not in a common applied area.
   
   
2. Applied Area: Pure Mathematics:
   

   Algebra 3                (5 CP)
   Differential Geometry    (5 CP)

   NOT VALID: From the Math Department and not an applied course.
   
   
3. Applied Area: More Statistical Methodology:
   

   Probability Theory  (*)  (5 CP)  
   Survival Analysis   (**) (3 CP)  
   Spatial Statistics  (**) (2 CP)  

   NOT VALID:
   (*): is from the Math Department and not applied;
   (**) are offered as math.-stat. electives.