Smith MBAs Travel to NYC for Annual Wall Street Trek

A group of first- and second-year Smith MBA students traveled to the New York City area on the Finance Association’s annual Wall Street Trek, Nov. 8-9, 2007. The trip is designed to allow Smith Students interested in pursuing careers in capital markets to attend discussion and informational sessions with Wall Street professionals. The goal is to expose the students to a variety of jobs inside the industry and give them the opportunity to network with Smith alumni who are currently employed in capital markets.

The trip featured a very busy schedule, as the finance association hoped to meet with as many different firms as possible. The group of 20 Smith MBA students departed College Park early on Thursday Nov. 8, bound for Stamford, CT. Once arriving in Stamford, the group was treated to a brief tour of the largest trading floor in the world at the U.S. headquarters of UBS. Over two football fields in length, UBS’ trading floor features state-of-the-art technology and design, and actually does not require a heating system because the heat generated by all of the electronic equipment is recycled to maintain the temperature. After seeing the floor, the group listened to a presentation from a UBS corporate recruiter and then had a question-and-answer session with two members of the Fixed Income Research team at UBS.

Following the UBS visit the group was split up. With the first group going to visit K2, a fund of funds specializing in hedge fund investing in Stamford, and the second group going to TQA Partners, a hedge fund operating in the Stamford area. After these visits, the students boarded the bus to head back into New York City for an alumni happy hour at Mantra bar on the East Side of Manhattan.

Bright and early on Friday morning participants were treated to a presentation by a group of investment bankers from J.P. Morgan. The bankers gave a presentation and took questions from the MBA’s about career paths in the investment banking business. Following this trip the group was split again, some going to meet with ThinkEquity, an equity investment banking firm, and the rest going to meet with two equity analysts from FBR Capital Markets.

The Smith MBA’s were treated to lunch at the offices of Sandler O’Neill. During lunch, the group listened to a presentation from several of the firm’s equity analysts, and had a question-and-answer session with Ed Smith, a principal at Sandler. For their last meeting of the day, the MBA’s fought the rain and a few detours through New York City’s Grand Central Station, to meet with sales and trading representatives of Barclays Capital. This meeting started with an overview of the recruiting process from Barclays HR, and then was followed by a question and answer session with a member of Barclays’ short-term sales desk and the head of their commodities sales team. The meeting and the trip concluded with a tour of the Barclays trading floor, which is the largest floor in Manhattan.

For more information about the Smith MBA Finance Association, visit:
http://www.rhsmith.umd.edu/organizations/mba-finance/

▓ Adam Weiner, MBA Candidate 2009, Smith Media Group