Starting Finance Club at my school

I'm in the process of starting a finance club at my school. I need some ideas for activities. I want to bring in guest speakers who work in finance, but what are some other things?

 

Looking for affiliation with an outside body is always good too. Im the president of the business club at my school (private liberal arts top 30), and we are affiliated with a local association for human resources management. While HR topics don't scream "come to our event!", using the connections that such a local body could give you access to, as far as speakers and workshops go, is a big plus. It also helps credibility as well.

 

Id pretty much focus on how to network and bringing in speakers. Point your members towards WSO ;)

"You stop being an asshole when it sucks to be you." -IlliniProgrammer "Your grammar made me wish I'd been aborted." -happypantsmcgee
 

Really it depends on how you set it up, at my school you need a professor to preside over every club and in a way they have the last say on everything that happens. What you do really depends on the students you attract and how you structure the meetings, keep in mind that many students may be finance or general business majors but many of them do not have a true interest in these fields so they may find discussing these topics to be boring. At least that is the case at my school, for every 10 finance majors id say 3/10 are actually really interested in it and would enjoy discussing or learning more (outside of what school requires). I led my schools Econ club and to be honest what attracted people was games, outside speakers, and free food. Not many people were interested in actually learning more about economics let alone the global financial system and how different sectors of the macro-economy affect various industries/fields/ nor were many people interested in discussions or debates. In the Economics club we had several outside speakers, someone from the World Bank, two people from oil and gas industries who were analysts in their companies. In additions professors including the department head talking about potential careers and stressing the importance of post graduate work as a prerequisite to any higher or even mid level financial job let alone any job involving economic research.

Of course it all depends on what the students are like imo.

 

• Manage about $100,000 (raise through alumni?) • Pitch stock to the group every/other week. • Teach financial modeling/valuation to the group. • Review accounting principles/prepare for general finance interview questions. • Bring in alumni speakers. • Hold investing competition every semester.

"I do not think that there is any other quality so essential to success of any kind as the quality of perseverance. It overcomes almost everything, even nature."
 

If you start an investment club just invest with real money - that's way better than an "online trading game". And members would be more committed.

Otherwise we currently have a PE/VC society at our uni - the main point being that they contact local firms and try to find some speakers. Pretty good for networking, and very interesting.

 

Are there any clubs that you know of that are out of the box? The club I was thinking about starting is like the PE/VC club you just described, but I feel that it's just an unoriginal idea and won't be that impressive on a resume. I want to do something different, but i'm all out of ideas.

 

Personally I am president of a small investment club and although not so original it is still an experience that I consider worth speaking about. The idea does not have to be so original to look good on a resume to my opinion, it is more about how the whole project is working, and in the PE/VC case if you can find good speakers.

 
nycstateofmind:
Is this going to be an investment club, or just a club for people interested in banking?
Initially I was thinking to gather people who are interested in breaking into banking, and to be a platform for the students to reach out to alumni who have already been working in the industry. Not sure whether this kind of objective would work well, I would be more than happy if you have any extra thoughts.
 

Good initiative. Here's what I would do:

1) Immediately contact all alumni from your school working in finance and ask for their advice. Specifically, ask if they had a finance club during their time in undergrad, and if not, what they wish they had that could have benefited them when they wanted to break in. Locate them using the alumni database or Linkedin. This is a great way to build rapport (as opposed to a simple networking call, which is clearly made with the overt intention of getting something out of the relationship), and truthfully, they just know more about the school's needs than we ever would. And it doesn't hurt to be remembered as "the guy that was trying to help out the school" when you need to find an internship or job.

2) Alumni responses will differ, but what I find helpful are seminars where alumni explain what exactly they do, and company visits. I don't think you can do much more than this, and see if anyone you fish out of 1) can help with this.

3) This club ultimately needs to serve as a conduit between students that want to break into finance and people that are willing to help. If the school lacks no alternatives, and this club has the real potential to alter job placement at your school, you may be able to hustle some money out of the administration for throwing/attending events. See if you can get a funded trip to the WSO conference next year, or anything-finance related really. The school already knows this, but I would argue that if the club has the long-term potential to alter job placement in a "positive" way, it could have a tangible impact on how the school's endowment will grow. Let me know if you need any help with this part.

4) I've seen student organizations grow to the point where they manage a fund of money granted by alumni- not sure how this is done, but if you could be the one that launches such an endeavor, that would indeed be impressive. See 1)

What you don't want to happen is to create a club where you simply have undergrads 'interested' in finance, and no one else. Something like that would be "The Worst of WSO, In Person"

Source: Did (something like) this in college.

 
Culcet:
What you don't want to happen is to create a club where you simply have undergrads 'interested' in finance, and no one else. Something like that would be "The Worst of WSO, In Person"

A lot of good info here. Thanks a lot! Btw I do not quite understand here, are you saying that having undergrads who are merely interested aren't enough? Can you tell me more about this?

 

I can tell you right now, if I joined a club at school and they wanted to do community service, I would be un-joining that club.

You're born, you take shit. You get out in the world, you take more shit. You climb a little higher, you take less shit. Till one day you're up in the rarefied atmosphere and you've forgotten what shit even looks like. Welcome to the layer cake, son.
 
Boothorbust:
Ugh, don't go to NYSE, it's a museum. Better to find an alumnus who works at a bank and can take you guys around the trading floor or somewhere business actually gets done.

this

I didn't say it was your fault, I said I was blaming you.
 

NYSE has a pretty nice private dining room, not sure if it's included on tours.

Some things the various finance clubs at my school did:

  • Student conferences (consulting, PE, hedge funds, emerging markets, etc)
  • Trips to int'l financial centres with visits to all the major banks/consultancies (Dubai, HK, NYC, London, etc)
  • Student run investment funds
  • Finance / consulting workshops
  • Investment ideas newsletters (a la VIC)
  • Student run magazines (finance, economics)

How much of that is feasible will depend on # / commitment of sponsors (avg society budget was around 50k) and # / commitment of members

 
jimbob6:
Hey guys, I'm the President of my school's Finance Club, and I was hoping you could add some of the things you did at your school...

The first rule of Finance Club is: YOU DO NOT TALK ABOUT FINANCE CLUB.

“Millionaires don't use astrology, billionaires do”
 

Depends where the school is. If you go to Grinell, god help you getting alums out there. If you are in New York, you could have a finance speaker every week.

Field trips are expensive. And I can't think of a great destination off the top of my head.

Try to get the college to give you some of the endowment to invest. $50,000 to $100,000 is nothing for them. Worst case that 100k lags the market a few %. Run it like a fund.

Do mock interviews, both with alums & seniors.

See if you can get sponsored by a bank or some other firm.

 
noway:
Get speakers from relevant industries, do alumni panels, arrange networking events, try to schedule on-site visits, run a mock portfolio, resume workshops, cover letter workshops, assist companies hosting on-campus events/presentations, etc.

but to be honest, founding one is nice but won't add much to a CV.

Thanks for the suggestions. Well, I'm sure it won't add much, but since I have a pretty academic-intense CV i believe that a line that says something like "XXX Business School Finance Club: President" might just be better than not having it.

 

internships >>>>>>>>>> finance club

i didn't found a business club, but i was the president of one and i was never asked any questions about it in an interview, and i'm pretty sure no one cared about it. what i'm saying is that it takes a lot of time to get this stuff set up and execute. might as well spend that time either working a part-time internship, or networking. either will be much more beneficial than one line in a resume.

 
beamerbenzorbentley:
rofl founding a finance club. proper grammar pls. i laugh at that shit whenever i see that while screening resumes

What is the correct way of saying it? I'm not a native english speaker.

nb84:
Aside from not being that impressive on a resume, you will be practicing technicals and working on your cover letters/resumes with the same group of people who you will be competing with for interviews. Nothing makes you stand out less than having a cover letter and resume that are extremely similar to every other applicant that the interviewer spoke to that day. Not to mention you will all answer your technicals in almost the same manner and nobody will stand out above the rest. You're better off preparing on your own or with someone majoring in finance but not going into the same industry. It may not be the friendliest concept in the world, but you'll get more superdays.
Well, this is not a real problem, since most of the people I will be practicing with will not apply to SA interviews but to off-cycle ones. I'm going for the SA ones instead.
 
beamerbenzorbentley:
rofl founding a finance club. proper grammar pls. i laugh at that shit whenever i see that while screening resumes

Proper grammar? Says the person who used "pls", "i".... really lloyd come on stick to being hood rich.

The answer to your question is 1) network 2) get involved 3) beef up your resume 4) repeat -happypantsmcgee WSO is not your personal search function.
 

Aside from not being that impressive on a resume, you will be practicing technicals and working on your cover letters/resumes with the same group of people who you will be competing with for interviews. Nothing makes you stand out less than having a cover letter and resume that are extremely similar to every other applicant that the interviewer spoke to that day. Not to mention you will all answer your technicals in almost the same manner and nobody will stand out above the rest. You're better off preparing on your own or with someone majoring in finance but not going into the same industry. It may not be the friendliest concept in the world, but you'll get more superdays.

 

The truth is that (at least in London and Frankfurt) investment banks do not about extracurricular activities. Noone has ever asked me about anything like that, even though I have some off that stuff on my resume. This is not consulting, bankers know that 80% of extracurricular activities listed on CV's are either entirely made up, or vastly exaggerated.

 
Il Cavaliere:
The truth is that (at least in London and Frankfurt) investment banks do not about extracurricular activities. Noone has ever asked me about anything like that, even though I have some off that stuff on my resume. This is not consulting, bankers know that 80% of extracurricular activities listed on CV's are either entirely made up, or vastly exaggerated.

100% false. A kid with no extracurriculars on his/her resume faces a significantly uphill battle when it comes to getting an interview. He or she would need to have a stellar GPA (i.e. 4.0) and substantial internship experience to make up for the lack of campus involvement.

 

If you were to start an investing club, raise funds and make money, then that would be worth putting on your resume. To be completely honest, in our resume reviews being in finance club isn't worth much when you're competing against kids with solid internship experience. At least founding a fund-raising investment club demonstrates commitment and high interest.

 

Totally doable. Try structuring it as kind of a learning thing where you teach people about fundamental IB concepts, prep for interviews, discuss markets, etc. Eventually recruiters that go to your school will seek out kids who specifically were part of that club. Even more important if you go to a nontarget. The end goal of this should be kind of having the club as a pipeline for wall street.

 
er17:

Totally doable. Try structuring it as kind of a learning thing where you teach people about fundamental IB concepts, prep for interviews, discuss markets, etc. Eventually recruiters that go to your school will seek out kids who specifically were part of that club. Even more important if you go to a nontarget. The end goal of this should be kind of having the club as a pipeline for wall street.

That's similar to what I was thinking. I was looking at Indiana's IB seminar/workshop and it looks like they have an amazing program. Emulating something even close to that would be awesome.

 

As a former SGA nerd, definitely get approved and recognized as a club so you can get funding, etc. for events or speakers. I saw several people with great ideas like yours get derailed by that. You could also see if your school would pay for (or at least subsidize) the on campus seminar from Wall Street Prep or something similar.

I think those alumni will be your most valuable assets in terms of speakers/video conferences/contacts/connecting kids with internships. Contact them early and ask for their advice.

 

Networking and info sessions from banks in the surrounding area to spread the word about the industry and hopefully place those who are interested on a path to the street. I'd really just like to have maybe 2-3 meetings each year given by those who work in the industry.

The partner from the bank I am currently interning at offered to give an info session at my school and put me in touch with his contacts for future info sessions. I just feel like our school is really underrepresented and the clubs we have right now aren't doing much of a job to help the general student body gain any idea about what high finance really is.

 

You sure you're at a semi-target?

The semi-targets I know of bring in dozens of top firms that fly in 5-10 alumni from each bank to give company presentations. Obviously you won't be able to do that given your alumni count. Another thing they do is bring alumni to judge case competitions, upperclassmen with Junior SA experience hold mock interviews and resume reviews.

Your best option is probably to give up on the club and just fight for your own internship. Or you could just start up some bs club to put on your resume, but I wouldn't count on it lasting too long after you graduate.

 

What does the investment management club have to do with the investment banking club? No point in having a club if your only going to have 3 meetings a year. I am sure you have a general club for finance and banking, partner with them on this.

Array
 

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