New Concentration Explores Global Finance

Smith now offers a concentration called “Global Financial Institutions” which premiered last week at the first lecture for a class called Intro to Financial Markets. The one-credit class, which is required for the concentration, meets on Tuesdays during lunch, and aims to educate Smith students about how the world’s major financial institutions operate. This is a “gateway” class for the concentration, which is now accepting applications for the 2012-13 year.

The class is taught by Smith economics and government professors, senior managers from multiple investment banks and an economist at the International Monetary Fund (IMF).  Speakers cover a range of topics including commercial banking, central banking, investment banking, aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis for non-banking financial institutions, IMF, the World Bank and a case study of an initial public offering. 

The concentration also requires students to attend activities such as the Wall Street Preperation training last weekend, during which students learned the basics of financial valuation and modeling and received interview advice for Wall Street internships.

The concentration is partially the brainchild of Mahnaz Mahdavi, professor of economics and director of the advisory board for the concentration. 

According to Professor Mahdavi, the concentration is not open to seniors as they may not be able to fulfill all the requirements of the concentration, which includes a special capstone seminar, called seminar plus, that requires all concentrators to meet multiple times a year and discuss their research. Whether the concentration will be open to juniors is still in question. 

For more information visit www.smith.edu/gfic