Class for today kids

Okay children, quiet down. YOU! Stop passing notes. Anyway, this week’s discussion is about classes you should be taking. If you want a job on the street or with a good company, you should know what classes to take to make you most prepared for those jobs.

4 General Rules:
1.) Pick Classes that are finance-related, be it indirectly or directly. Wow, I know, how obvious, but I feel the need to point out that your senior year basket-weaving class you took for a 4.0 might, just might, not be helping. I’m not saying don’t take classes that you want to because you find them interesting, I’m saying try your best to shy away from them. If your favorite hobby is photography, take a class on that but if you just want to take squid fishing for the hell of it, take another class that will better prepare you for work.
2.) Pick classes that focus more specifically on your specified fields of study. If you know you love everything about bonds; you eat, sleep, and want to marry a fixed income security, maybe minimize your classes to do with equity stock valuation and focus more on fixed income securities valuation and strategies.
3.) I hate to say it but, aim to have some sort of background in accounting. I know I’ve said this before but, really, it’s so very useful.
4.) Be able to write effectively because your boss will love you.

Well, now that we have the obvious out of the way, I’ll get more personal and specific.

For me, I love derivatives and derivatives calculations. Basically, I eat, sleep, and want to marry some sort of derivative security. Now, knowing this, I make sure I take all mathematically oriented classes not to mention every derivatives class I can find. Undergraduate, I majored in Corporate Finance and Accounting with a minor in Mathematical Sciences. Derivatives are basically big math models so I made sure to take classes like Financial Calculus, Discrete Options Pricing, Calculus III, Game Theory, Mathematical Foundations in Quantitative Finance, Fixed Income Valuation and Strategies (the valuation part interested me), and Equity Valuation. I realize that’s a long list but combined with the core required classes I had to take for my under grad and grad majors, I basically can calculate every financial item there is in the finance world. That’s not bragging, it’s just education. I made sure I took all the classes that would allow me to do that. I guess I did sacrifice more the analytical aspect of finance, the intuitive side, for the more technical analysis but I’ve always been of the opinion that if a real investment is based on something other than good business fundamentals, it will be not much more than luck. I know some would disagree but I’ve seen so many “sure-things” fail I can’t say it’s much more than a Vegas gamble.

Now, for the more broad subjects, I have to words of advice: (well, not two words, I’m much more of a windbag than that)

1.) Background in accounting
Basically, and I’ve said this before, accounting is the common language of all business and understanding it will allow you the fundamental skills to succeed in virtually any environment. I know, many people (especially straight finance folk) hate accounting. I do, I hate it with a fiery passion. But I sucked it up and took 4 hard core financial accounting classes so I know I’d be able to read any financial document I was given at work. My roommate, who I’ve mentioned before, Shinsuke, now works at RBS in Japan said his one regret is that he doesn’t have my background in accounting. He has a hard time understanding precisely what certain things mean on accounting statements and what each line item entails. So, I know it sucks, I know it’s hard, I know you might hate it…but quit your bitching, man-up, and take a financial accounting class so you understand what the hell your reading when you go to work.

2.) Take English and/or writing classes
I know this will sound a little out of place but taking a few extra English/communications classes would be very helpful when you go to work. I know a few company owners and one of the biggest things they want from you would be your ability to communicate. I know first-hand that if my boss gets an email that he can’t understand, he’s not happy…and if your boss isn’t happy, nobody is happy. I’ve literally spent an hour de-coding a very important email for my boss so we could try to figure out what the hell one of the salesmen was telling us. Frequently, especially at the first levels of employment, your boss will ask you to write up a report summarizing…something… summary skills are CLUTCH in the workplace. You need to summarize an industry and you need to summarize it in less than a page. You need to use bullets, you don’t need full sentences, but you need to be clear, concise, and coherent. You need to get the point across and you need to do it quick. If you can do that, your boss will LOVE YOU because you lessen his workload. As an intern in every job I’ve had, my boss has told me that he/she was lucky to have me because I gave him less work. There’s that old joke “give me an intern who only doubles my workload and I’ll kiss his feet.” Be that guy who need to wash his feet every day. A way to do that is making sure you can communicate effectively; to do that (back from a moderate tangent), you should take some business communication/English/memo writing classes.

So I think I’ve bored you enough for this week. Go play halo or get drunk or something. dimissed.