Tag:

Finance

Faculty MPAc Rady School Staff Uncategorized

An Intro to Rady’s Master of Professional Accountancy: Welcome Class of 2020!

This September, the first ever cohort of Master of Professional Accountancy (MPAc) students will make history as they begin classes on campus at Rady School of Management at the University of California San Diego.

It’s an exciting time to be around the buzzing Rady campus, not just for the students but for the faculty and staff too. James Deiotte, Executive Director of Rady’s MPAc program, is particularly excited to kick off the 2019-2020 academic year with a refreshed take on the traditional masters of accountancy program.

James Deiotte, Executive Director, Master of Professional Accountancy

“Our students will be taught by professionals in the field they’re entering. They will gain great insights as to what goes on and what’s expected to become successful in the profession,” says Deiotte. “Being taught by research faculty and industry professionals, including retired accounting firm partners, will accelerate the career development of our students.”

What makes the Rady MPAc different is that we’re leveraging on the strengths of being a young business school that is entrepreneurial at its core. Rady is a school that has a collaborative and innovative culture and the MPAc program is no exception. The collaborative approach is reflected in the program’s crossover with other disciplines offered at the school, including business, analytics, and finance.

“We have approached embedding data and business analytics into most of our classes to accelerate the understanding of these changes and putting more context around it,” says Deiotte. “For example, we want our students to understand the legal nuances and the accounting implications of what is a digital asset and how you might want to account for the acquisition of those assets. We are especially interested in the accounting and reporting related to the new and restrictive regimes arising around the world like the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) or California’s Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA).”

Our program embraces students that want to change and make a meaningful impact in their careers and the profession. With the changes taking place in technology and data, students that have majored in data science, economics or international studies are finding that the accounting profession is interested in them, provided they can understand and use the language of business – accounting.

Getting into the profession is Job #1! “We’ve built a curriculum that accomplishes the most important tasks with respect to the professional development of our students,” says Deiotte. “We want to make sure that students are ready for certifications within the profession, including the CPA and CMA exams, which are both recognized globally.”

Growing in the profession and future proofing the student’s investment in their career is enhanced by Rady electives focused on leadership, communication and decision making courses and experiences from Capstones. “We have heard from firms, both large and small, that soft skills development is even more important today because of the rapid technology enabled changes taking place and the use of BOTS, AI and ML platforms,” says Deiotte.

For more information on Rady’s MPAc program, or if you’d like to apply for next year’s class, please visit https://rady.ucsd.edu/programs/masters-programs/master-of-professional-accountancy/ or email RadyGradAdmissions@ucsd.edu

September 4, 2019 0 comment

Faculty Master of Finance Rady School Uncategorized

The MFin capstone: A ticket into the finance industry

written by Rady School

Launched in 2014, the Master of Finance (MFin) program at Rady School of Management is a relatively new program. But despite its adolescence, the program and its curriculum has quickly become highly praised within the industry.

Just last year it was ranked by the Financial Times as one of the top MFin programs in the world; a huge accomplishment after a mere four years since the program’s conception. It placed 14^th in the U.S. and is expected to rise higher in the future.

The highly-regarded ranking isn’t all that the MFin degree has to offer. The Rady School MFin program is a STEM-designated, CFA Institute-affiliated professional degree that delivers rigorous, hands-on training to prepare graduates to immediately contribute in environments where quantitative and analytical skills are at a premium.

Students learn leading-edge methods for analyzing big data for financial decision-making and risk management. The program’s emphasis on quantitative models and methods ensures that graduates are equipped to develop innovative solutions to the complex problems facing the financial industry.

“The Master of Finance program at Rady is designed for the current needs of the finance industry. It incorporates class work that reflects what’s going on in the industry today and includes a heavy component of data science, which is presently very important for financial firms,” says Michael Melvin, the Executive Director of the MFin program at Rady.

Michael Melvin, Executive Director, Master of Finance, Rady School of Management

As Melvin notes; “It’s a quant program, so students learn quantitative skills, including financial econometrics that they can apply throughout their coursework including the final capstone research project.”

The MFin capstone is a project-based course that allows students to work with a prestigious firm within the finance industry. Students work together in teams of four and complete research that demonstrates the application of skills developed throughout the MFin program.

“Our students work with a mix of local and global firms. From San Diego to London to Hong Kong, capstone project stakeholders present students with a particular idea to research, which may cover a range of financial topics.”

These topics can include anything from portfolio construction, cryptocurrencies and bitcoin, trading issues, payments, asset management, and risk management, among many others. What’s more is that students can learn from collaborating with respected industry professionals.

Examples of capstone companies that students worked with this year include some of the top financial firms in the world, such as Goldman Sachs and BlackRock. They also worked with companies that have finance groups within them, like ViaSat, and a local La Jolla firm, Alphacore.

“Alphacore is a great example of a firm where we had students interning with them that were so successful in their research that Alphacore executives were interested in continuing the relationship and building upon what was started,” recalls Melvin.

Melvin says that “students might do a project with one firm but then that experience will lead them to opportunities with other firms as well.” Opportunities for students to network and showcase their skills often lead to their ultimate goal; employment.

“I think the MFin degree is a ticket into the industry. I used to be a Managing Director at BlackRock and we’re teaching students at Rady the skills that I wanted to hire for my teams at BlackRock, which were quantitative investing teams.”

The capstone increases employability because the students gain the skills and the abilities that firms want to hire. Not only that, but students can differentiate themselves from other job applicants because they’re able to highlight bespoke research on their resume.

“When capstone teams are doing very well, which they often do, firms will request resumes from the teams so that they can interview students, which leads to internships and permanent jobs.”

For anyone looking to enhance their career within the finance industry, the MFin program at Rady is a great place to start.

For more information about Rady’s MFin program, please visit https://rady.ucsd.edu/programs/masters-programs/master-of-finance/

July 24, 2019 0 comment

Faculty

The Family Business of Finance

written by Rady School

For Joseph Engelberg, the decision to pursue a career in finance was an easy one to make – it meant he would be continuing the “family business.” A native of San Diego, the Rady School professor of finance’s father worked as an accountant and introduced him to finance early on in his childhood, sparking an interest in business and leading him to earn a B.A. in mathematics and a B.S. in business administration at the University of Southern California (USC).

While academia was not Engelberg’s initial field of interest in college, he developed a curiosity for it when he worked as a research specialist under one of his USC professors at the Securities and Exchange Commission.

“It was eye-opening professionally and personally,” Engelberg said. “I’m thankful for the experiences that I was able to have because of that opportunity.”

After being exposed to the world of academia, Engleberg decided to embrace his newfound interest in research by pursuing a Ph.D. in Finance at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. While there, he became interested in observing the behavior of individuals within the stock market, later publishing a paper with fellow students on the effect of Jim Cramer’s show “Mad Money” had on stock pricing. His research has been referenced in national publications such as the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Los Angeles Times, , and the Chicago Sun Times.

Engleberg’s first teaching position was as an assistant professor at the University of North Carolina’s Kenan-Flager Business School, where he taught finance for three years. Engelberg would later return to San Diego and commit to a teaching position at the Rady School of Management because he enjoyed the school’s startup environment.

“I’ve had a chance to really influence the direction of things with the school,” Engelberg said. “It was a unique opportunity to merge my interests in finance with the exciting world of entrepreneurship.”

Engelberg’s main area of research is behavioral finance, which combines finance with insights about individual behavior from psychology. Traditionally, finance academics have thought investors act rationally when making financial decisions. Behavioral finance researchers like Engelberg think that investors are not completely rational and make mistakes which are predicted in the psychology literature. Engelberg and other behavioralists believe these mistakes can affect trading and prices in the stock market.

For anyone interested in behavioral finance or behavioral economics more generally, Engelberg recommends reading the books, “Thinking Fast and Slow,” by Daniel Kahneman, and “Misbehaving,” by Richard Thaler, as they introduce the topic and describe ways in which the research has been applied to real life.

Other fields of interest Engelberg enjoys pursuing include financial media, information processing, and financial networks.

March 20, 2019 0 comment

Students

Rady Venture Capitalists Put to the Test in Global Competition

written by Rady School

Rady School of Management students compete in a number of pitch competitions, presenting their startup companies to panels of entrepreneurial experts with the hopes of securing funding for their venture. But a recent competition had Rady students on the other side of the table, serving as venture capitalists looking to invest in the next big thing.

The Venture Capital Investment Competition challenges business school students with evaluating startup companies and determining their feasibility, scalability and profitability. Teams are given a pitch deck to review prior to the competition, and are tasked with completing their due diligence, including evaluating the market potential, business model and funds raised to date. On the day of the competition, companies pitch to the panel, who are judged on their ability to assemble a team of experts and on how they evaluate the companies.

Inspired by a desire to learn more about the world of investing, Andrew Engram (MBA ’19) created the Venture Capital Club to prepare for the competition and create a network of venture capitalist-hopefuls at the Rady School.

“We’ve covered the concepts related to venture capitalists in our courses here at Rady, but a better way to learn about a concept is to apply it to real-world situations,” he said.

The team – composed of Engram, Ehsan Amozegar, Joseph Baini, Sairam Chitneni, Adam Stallings and Jerry Skefos — was the first-ever contingency from Rady to compete in the Venture Capital Investment Competition.

With help from Rady School entrepreneurial experts Kimberley King and Lada Rasochova, the team devised a strategy on how to approach pitch sessions from the other side of the table.

“Kim and Lada were instrumental to our success,” Skefos said. “They came to our practice sessions and gave us insight on how we can improve and how to ask more effective questions. This was extremely helpful, because we were able to get a better understanding of how to set up market term sheets.”

Assuming the role

The team traveled to the University of Southern California to compete against five leading California MBA programs. They were tasked with assigning each member of the team with a role that would be represented in a typical venture capitalist firm, so each member assumed a persona for the day – a biotechnology expert, a lawyer, an angel investor and more.

“Our team was dubbed Elm Capital, and our task was to develop fund metrics and a fund profile,” Engram said. “We had to show the entrepreneur how we could bring value to them by investing in them and by our connections.”

The company Elm Capital evaluated was Voluware, a cloud-based workflow optimization and automation solution for administrative healthcare transactions. Using this knowledge, the team adjusted their strategy to include new personas to fit the needs of the company.

“Oddly enough, that was one of the most difficult parts of the competition, because we had to really think about the company holistically to determine what the ideal investment firm would look like,” Baini said. “Right when you walk into the room, you introduce yourself as an expert in an industry with tons of industry contacts, even if it isn’t true. You have to be confident in your presentation. In the first round, we lost points because we didn’t come up with a strong fictional team, so in the second round we really thought about it and worked on improving our ability to compile a team of experts.”

“We had a 14 minute segment to interview the startup teams, and each person on the team has their own questions that they’ve identified to ask,” Amozegar said. “We were judged during that evaluation based on the insight we had into the venture capitalist process and what questions we were asking.”

In addition to understanding venture capitalist-affiliated terms, the team was judged on their ability to command the room.

“Considering the amount of questions that we should be asking, it’s extremely tough to accomplish everything in just 14 minutes, so the judges graded us oncontrol in the sense of being able to get the necessary information out of the entrepreneurs while also moving on to the next topic without being too aggressive,” Stallings said. “It’s a difficult balance because you’re building a real relationship when you’re going to become business partners.”.”

The Rady team was able to ask questions after the pitch and the judges – a group of celebrated venture capitalists, lawyers and angel investors – grilled the team on their knowledge of the process.

“They asked us questions to intentionally throw us off — so even if we asked the right question or had insight into the company that was correct, they’ll question it and make is sound like it’s completely wrong just to test to see if we actually knew what we were talking about,” said Stallings with a smile. “We had to walk in with some nerve, otherwise they just break that down. It was a great learning experience, because that’s likely how that scenario plays out in the real world.”

Valuable insights

Although the team did not advance to the next round, they believe the experience was worthwhile.

“This was a great opportunity to get positive exposure for the Rady School in the venture capital world,” Skefos said. “Rady students have a lot to offer in terms of our connections to technology and science, from our esteemed cohort, versus traditional venture capitalist companies that are typically heavily finance-based. Companies are starting to realize they need to have at least an expertise in a lot more than before. They are trying to hire scientists and people with a science background so, this school is unique in that way.”

The development of a new Rady School club was also a positive attribute of competing in the Venture Capital Investment Competition.

“Rady is an entrepreneurial school, and part of the entrepreneurial ecosystem is venture capital,” Engram said. “That’s a big reason why I started the Rady Venture Capital Club and going forward, it’s a great opportunity for students to get real-world experience in this field.”

March 15, 2019 0 comment

Uncategorized

Rady Team Places Second in Prestigious Competition

written by Rady School

A team of Rady School of Management Master of Finance students recently headed to Irvine to compete in the ACG Cup – a case study competition hosted by the Association for Corporate Growth.

Nine teams from leading business schools across Southern California gathered to compete for the $10,000 prize awarded to the team with the best business plan. The task? To present valuation, capital markets, and merger and acquisition strategic advice to a panel of seasoned industry professionals affiliated with the ACG.

The Rady School team was comprised of Sairam Chitneni, Ishaan Khanna and Jason Kleideris, all members of the 2019 Master of Finance cohort. In order to qualify for the competition, the students competed against three other Rady School teams to see which team had the best presentation for solving a complex investment banking strategy. Local ACG members judged the four teams based on the strategy, implementation plan and presentation, selecting Chitneni, Khanna and Klederis as the finalists.

Once the finalists were selected, they were given a case study to complete in one week.

“This competition is unique because participants are able to assume the roles of investment bankers,” Chitneni said. “We were given a scenario for a fictitious company, then had to create a plan that described whether the company should divest some of its assets or buy another company based on the information we were given.”

The real-world relevance of the competition is what inspired Khanna to get involved with a team.

“I thought this would be an interesting opportunity to take what I’ve been learning in class and apply it to a situation I’ll be dealing with in my future career,” he said. “I was interested in the idea of building a complex plan from scratch. We learn these things theoretically, but building them, applying them practically and especially getting in front of people who actually do this kind of work for a living – I thought that this would be an amazing opportunity.”

Getting prepared

To prepare for the finals, the team members enlisted the help of members of the Rady community.

Professor William Mullins helped guide the team in the right direction, providing invaluable insight into empirical banking and corporate finance. Professor Jeremy Bertomeu also supported the team by helping with some of the harder theoretical problems in the case.

In the first part of the competition, the team had a pristine report, but lacked the presentation skills to deliver a clear and concise report of their findings. Robert Schmidt, a lecturer at the Rady School, helped the team fine-tune their presentation skills.

“Professor Schmidt’s expertise in business communication helped us develop new ways to present our data,” Kleideris said. “We put together a comprehensive and clear plan, but we initially had some trouble presenting it in a way that was easy to understand. The goal of this competition was to be able to take complex information and present it in a way that is effective and cohesive, and Schmidt was extremely helpful when it came to developing our team’s communication skills.”

The final showdown

Armed with the knowledge and confidence, the Rady School team of financial experts donned their investment banker personas and headed to Chapman University to face Southern California’s finest business graduate teams in the ACG Cup Finals.

After the initial presentation, the Rady School team advanced to the final round, knocking out powerhouse teams including the USC Marshall School of Business and the UCLA Anderson School of Business. Pepperdine University and UC Irvine faced off against the Rady School team in the final round. The team was tasked with expanding on their presentation and were asked rapid-fire questions from a panel of ACG chapter member professionals.

Although the team placed second to UC Irvine, judges mentioned that the final score margins were razor-thin.

“We were very pleased with the outcome,” Chitneni said. “We were the only team comprised of Master of Finance students. All other teams were from either MBA or Executive MBA programs, and a lot of those students were older professionals who currently work in the relevant fields.”

A worthwhile experience

Each member of the team emphasized the value of participating in the competition.

“We spent hours working on our presentation, but the experience and relevance to our future careers was invaluable,” Khanna said. “If we enter this field professionally, this is similar to the projects we’ll have every day in our careers.”

Chitneni echoed these statements, adding that he gained valuable personal and professional skills through his involvement with the competition.

“This experience really challenged me to improve my presentation skills – I really improved from the first time we presented in the Rady competition, to when we were presenting in front of an entire room filled with professionals at the final event,” he said. “I also think participating in this event improved my evaluation skills. We have studied these concepts theoretically, but applying them in real-world scenarios helped me understand the importance of those assumptions.”

The ACG Rady veterans hope that their success will inspire more Rady School students to participate in next year’s competition.

“I’m definitely interested in helping out next year’s team in the competition – I feel that all Rady graduate students would enjoy the experience,” Kleideris said. “Since we’ve been through it, we understand what the judges are looking for and how to develop a compelling presentation. I think we could be valuable resources for future Rady School teams, and we would be happy to stay involved and help them out.”

With these experts backing the next generation of Rady ACG Cup participants, the school can expect the trophy case located in the Student Services office to grow in the near future.

About ACG

Founded in 1954, the Association for Corporate Growth has chapters worldwide representing 14,500 members. ACG serves 90,000 investors, executives, lenders and advisers to growing middle-market companies. ACG’s mission is to drive middle-market growth.

March 11, 2019 0 comment

Faculty Uncategorized

A Life of Finance

written by Rady School

For Assistant Professor Krisztina Buti, the field of corporate finance is her natural habitat. Her impressive academic background includes a Ph.D., a chartered financial analyst, a master’s in economics and an MBA, while her experience comes from over eight years in financial advisory positions.

A native Hungarian, Buti’s career in corporate finance began with management positions at Creditanstalt Investment Bank and Concorde Aquila Corporate Finance, a venture capital firm based in Budapest. She participated in the privatization of formerly state-owned enterprises via private placements, initial public offerings and seasoned offerings. “Corporations and banks needed capital injections to become competitive,” Buti said. “The new owners brought managerial know-how, technological expertise, and marketing skills. The stock market allowed investors to profit from this growth.”

Buti would then shift her career toward an academic role, in part, because of family. “Investment banking is incredibly challenging,” Buti said. “You gain enormous experience, but you work long hours under high pressure. I changed to a field where I can use my expertise, but allow a life outside of work.”

She decided to take a position as senior lecturer at Central European University, a premier academic institution in Europe. She was responsible for coordinating the finance area and teaching courses for MBA students. “I adopted a case study based approach,” she said. “Students appreciated the depth of knowledge gained from analyzing problems from multiple angles.”

Inspired by the world of academia, Buti decided to pursue a new challenge by enrolling in the financial economics Ph.D. program at the University of Utah. She credits this experience for gaining an invaluable understanding of theory and methodology that allows her to conduct research. Her research focuses on corporate finance, particularly major corporate transformations, like acquisitions and restructurings.

Buti’s recent papers examine how the market learns about a firm’s internal investment opportunities from the acquisition announcement and how market frictions influence the price response. She chose to come to Rady because of its excellent finance department, the emerging entrepreneurial environment and the tight-knit community.

“There is more opportunity for meaningful interaction in the faculty and with the students,” she said. “I appreciate the opportunity to work in such a dynamic department. Also, who wouldn’t want to come to San Diego? This city is amazing.”

February 20, 2019 0 comment

Master of Finance Students

People of Rady: Jasmine Tsui

written by Rady School

Jasmine Tsui (MFin ’19) graduated from the University of Oregon with bachelor’s degree in Accounting. After receiving her degree, she worked as a tax assistant associate for PwC in Hong Kong. After a year in this position, Tsui obtained an assurance associate position at EY Hong Kong for two years, where she was promoted to Senior Assurance Associate. She also worked as a general accountant in the United States where she realized her fascination with numbers, programming and finance. Her passion drove her to pursue a Master of Finance degree at the Rady School of Management.

1) Why did you choose to pursue a Master of Finance?

I chose to pursue a Master of Finance because as an accountant I realized that I could learn a lot about a company by analyzing its financial statements. A Master of Finance will allow me to better make financial decisions in my career.

2) Why did you choose the Rady School?

The program gives students industry experience in its courses, culminating in a real-life capstone project. A strong focus on quantitative curriculum sets Rady apart from other programs.

3) What do you feel makes Rady unique? How do you benefit from these aspects?

The faculty puts students first and truly cares about their success. They provide us access to a variety of career-related resources and get us ready for the workforce. I will be ready to join the workforce with remarkable soft skills once I finished the program.

4) What classes are you looking forward to taking this year?

I am looking forward to taking Data Science for Finance using Python. The class will enhance my data analysis technique by introducing powerful tools, and allow me to make accurate predictions by studying the data patterns.

5) How has your perspective on your career or your life changed since you came to Rady?

The Rady School of Management arranged many events for students to connect with alumni. It gave me an opportunity to build up my network and explore different financial positions, which gave me valuable insight into the industry

6) What are your goals after graduation?

Applying the terrific data analysis and communication skills earned at Rady in the workplace. Also, I would like to be a resource to prospective students.

7) What advice do you have for prospective students?

Reach out to Rady faculty and alumni when you need help or advice. They are always willing to answer questions and help out.

November 15, 2018 0 comment

Rady School

Rady School Hosts International Finance Conference

written by Rady School

The Rady School of Management was home to the recent Global Interdependence Center Money, Models, and Digital Innovation conference – an event dedicated to exploring current trends and their effects on portfolio management, big data and machine learning and crypto-digital currencies.

The conference brought together Rady School academics and practitioners to discuss exciting innovations, the current economic climate and trends that are shifting the world of finance.

According to Michael Melvin, Executive Director of the Master of Finance program: “We are delighted that the GIC chose the Rady School of Management as their partner to host this important conference and bring 75 distinguished finance practitioners to our campus. This reflects the growing stature of our School in the eyes of the global finance community.”

Rady School professors participated in the event as moderators and lecturers. Allan Timmermann, Professor of Finance, presented a talk titled “Quantitative Methods and Judgment: Competitors or Complements?”Michael Melvin served as a moderator for the panel. Finance professor Ross Valkanov gave a lecture detailing different strategies to optimize portfolios. Accounting and finance professor Harry Markowitz — who started the modern portfolio era with his pioneering work on risk and portfolio selection — gave a presentation about his life and the theory that earned him a Nobel Prize in Economics.

The conference also served as a platform to award Eric Rosengren, President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, with the Fredrick Heldring Award for Global Leadership. In his keynote address titled “Considering Alternative Monetary Policy Frameworks: An Inflation Range with an Adjustable Inflation Target,” Rosengren discussed the current United States economic climate and suggested alternative frameworks for Federal Reserve inflation targeting policy.

“We were honored to host the GIC Conference,” said Rady School of Management Dean Robert Sullivan. “The Rady School’s increased focus on quantitative finance and data analytics was perfectly aligned with the theme of the conference.”

About the Global Interdependence Center

The Global Interdependence Center is a Philadelphia-based nonprofit organization with a global reach. Its mission is to encourage the expansion of global dialogue and free trade in order to improve cooperation and understanding among nations, with the goal of reducing international conflicts and improving worldwide living standards.

January 17, 2018 0 comment

Alumni

I am Rady Made: How my Master of Finance Transformed my Career (and Can Transform Yours Too)

written by Rady School

I Discovered My Passion

Before I came to the Rady School at UC San Diego, I was sure that I wanted to end up as a portfolio manager for some hedge-fund-like investment vehicle or investment bank.

The Rady School’s recently launched Master of Finance programpromised to teach students cutting edge data analyzing techniques with a strict focus on quantitative estimation approaches – pretty much exactly what you want to learn if you aim to be successful in the modern, fast-paced trading world.

What I did not expect from my Rady School education were the numerous data analysis projects, replicating famous finance papers and the faculty’s contagious enthusiasm for research, which would make me change course from my previous industry and pursue a Ph.D. degree to become a Professor.

oliver-binz

I Gained Experience That Helped Me Advance Immediately

One month after handing in my capstone research report which examined the effects of accrual catering policies on companies’ market prices, I now sit in my office at Duke University in North Carolina and think about research questions that came up in a conversation with one of the Professors in my department at Duke’s Fuqua School of Business.

The rigorous training that I went through at the Rady School qualified me to be involved in research projects right from the start – a privilege that is a rare commodity among incoming doctoral students.

After my year at the Rady School, I can confidently handle a wide range of econometrical methods including OLS, MLE, GMM, event studies, random forests, dynamic Monte Carlo simulations, binominal trees, Kalman filtering, MSM, GARCH modeling, and so much more. You can basically tackle every empirical research or forecasting problem with such a toolset, and you will be able make the most out of the information that is deeply hidden in your data set.

Because data seems to overtake the world since recently, this knowledge serves well in the job market – it doesn’t really matter whether your field is Finance or Micro Biology.

oliver-binz

I Lived in and Explored One of the Best Cities in the World
Located in La Jolla, San Diego, the Rady School is right across the street from the ocean, inviting students to frequent surf sessions and long beach walks.

While it may seem like it would be hard to handle three to four data projects a week while the sun shines approximately 365 days a year in La Jolla, I was able to explore many of the local treasures. Day visits to Balboa Park and the Gas Lamp Quarter as well as weekend trips to Joshua Tree National Park and the Grand Canyon did result in some additional study nights, but the reward was definitely worth it.

Oliver Binz (Master of Finance, ’15) is a Rady School of Management alumni and is currently a Ph.D. Candidate at Duke University. After getting his Ph.D., Binz hopes to become a professor in the U.S. to pursue his passions for finance and accounting research in the field and teaching students.

August 20, 2015 0 comment