Finance students take Windy City tour to expand investment knowledge
Farmer School of Business students spent part of their summer learning about business valuation and investment banking
Finance students take Windy City tour to expand investment knowledge
When it came time to take part in this year’s Chicago Finance Week, Maura Glynn didn’t have far to travel.
“I'm from a suburb outside of Chicago, so it was kind of a no-brainer for me to sign up for the program because I just have to take the train downtown,” she laughed.
The class wasn’t on Jake Sikon’s radar until his parents brought it up. “After they told me about it and all the opportunities that arose from it, I said, ‘Oh, yeah, this definitely sounds like something that I want to be a part of,’” he said.
Glynn and Sikon, both junior Finance majors, were among more than a dozen students to take part in the yearly event this summer. While the title may imply a short trip, Chicago Finance Week is actually a six-week asynchronous summer class (FIN 320) in the Department of Finance.
“We collaborate with William Blair (global investment bank and financial services company) on the development of a valuation case. Over the five weeks before Chicago week, students individually complete a series of modules/exercises that form the basis for their solution to the case,” Finance professor Tom Boulton said. “Students are ultimately combined into teams and use the best pieces of their individual analyses to put together a group presentation that they present to William Blair while in Chicago.”
“It was great because you could do the work on your own time. So, for students who had internships like me, you could complete the assigned slides anytime during the week, and they were due the following Sunday. So that made it super flexible,” Glynn said.
“It was a pretty decent time commitment, but it was a really good course, and it was well taught. Professor Bolton was very, very instructive and informative,” Sikon said.
Once in Chicago during the last week of the class, students spent three days making visits to the offices of various companies to learn about investment banking and business valuation. “I love being busy, and we were always on the go, all day, every day,” Sikon said. “We were touring all these different firms, meeting all these different people.”
“On the second day, we had a Miami alumni reception/networking event, which was so nice,” Glynn said. “A lot of recent grads came too, which was awesome to see what they were doing and where Miami had gotten them.”
On the final day, the groups made their presentations to William Blair executives. “We’d been working the entire summer for it and practiced for it until like 11 p.m. the night before,” Glynn said. “It was interesting to see what the other student teams did differently than ours, especially with their analyses.”
“The way they put together the case competition for us was really thoughtful, because it was based on a prior deal that they had gone through a couple of years beforehand,” Sikon said. “I thought working on something that actual professionals do was pretty impactful.”
Glynn and Sikon said they were glad they took part in the class. “I thought it was a great experience. I had a great time doing it, and I would recommend it to the next student,” Sikon said.
“Having the opportunity to engage with all of these different people was amazing and just amazing practice for me, which I know that I needed under my belt,” Glynn said. “I think it would be silly if you pass up this experience. I'm going to be recommending it to anyone.”
