High School Students Invited to Nichols’ June Finance Camp
By LORRAINE U. MARTINELLE
Nichols College is now an official Bloomberg Experiential Learning Partner (ELP), joining an exclusive group of 35 educational institutions from around the world. Bloomberg is a global information and technology company that delivers business and financial news, data, and powerful analytics; it has been a market leader since the 1980s. And now, Nichols students have access to the same Bloomberg technology used by thousands of finance professionals on Wall Street and beyond.
Being a Bloomberg ELP is a prestigious honor recognizing Nichols as a cutting-edge business college that helps students build their analytical skills, which are needed for a career in finance and accounting. Bloomberg’s software technology has enhanced the College’s already-strong experiential business curriculum; this inclusion of experiential learning is a key part of the Nichols mission.
Nichols joined a group of 950 educational institutions that use Bloomberg Terminals in June 2018, when it established its Bloomberg Finance Lab, and is already in the top 5 percent of that group in terms of the number of students earning Bloomberg Market Concepts certification. The high number of Bloomberg-certified students made Nichols eligible to be a Bloomberg ELP.
“Being a Bloomberg Experiential Learning Partner allows Nichols College to better integrate industry-leading data, research, news, and analytics into our curricula,” said Associate Professor and Finance Program Chair Christine Beaudin Durkin.
The Bloomberg Finance Lab is part of the College’s Bloomberg Financial Trading Room in Fels Student Center. The Trading Room is equipped with 23 double-monitor student stations and contains a stock ticker tape to further allow students to monitor the equities market.
“Each of the 11 Bloomberg Terminals in our state-of-the-art Trading Room can be used by a pair of Nichols students to explore the same tools and software used by professional traders on Wall Street and gain valuable financial skills,” said Professor Beaudin Durkin.
A large number of upper-level business courses are taught in the lab to integrate the Bloomberg Terminals into the classroom. Nichols students also have access outside classroom hours to the lab, which is open six days a week and is monitored by four student lab assistants and faculty. The lab assistants primarily conduct the majority of student-training sessions and help peers on a daily basis with data analysis assignments, research projects, and portfolio analysis. A Bloomberg representative visits campus on a regular basis to enhance the level of training for students.
Students have the ability to upload their résumé to Bloomberg; have access to a network of thousands of Bloomberg-using alumni; and peruse job and internship listings. They also get a personal Bloomberg email address to put on their résumé.
“Through the Bloomberg Terminals, Nichols students observe the impact of world events and market behavior in real time, while acquiring marketable skills that improve the odds of landing the jobs they want,” said Professor Beaudin Durkin.
The goal for next academic year, she noted, will be to have a group of students use Bloomberg information to help manage a student-run investment fund.
BLOOMBERG TRADING ROOM VISITS, FINANCE CAMP
High school students are invited to visit the Nichols College Bloomberg Financial Trading Room May 20-24, 2019. The room will be available each day from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. on a first-come, first-serve basis and staffed by Assistant Professor of Finance Karin Curran. High school business teachers are invited also to explore how they can incorporate Bloomberg Terminals into their own class curricula.
In June, a “Bloomberg Trading Room Submersion” finance camp will be held at Nichols. High school student investors will spend four afternoons using the Bloomberg Terminals under the supervision of Nichols business professors. Students will spend a week in the College’s state-of-the-art trading room, learning the basics of investment strategies using the Bloomberg platform. Each day, camp participants will have access to the tools and software used by professional traders on Wall Street and gain financial skills. There are six Trading Room sessions, and students are expected to attend at least four. The sessions include lessons on using Bloomberg financial tools and financial terms, basic stock market valuation, trading in financial markets, and using probability and statistics for financial decision making. Students will also have an opportunity to work toward achieving the Bloomberg Market Concepts Certificate.
- Stay tuned for more information on the May and June events.
NICHOLS COLLEGE HELPS HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS IN THEIR JOURNEY TO BECOME FUTURE BUSINESS LEADERS
Nichols places a strong emphasis on supporting high school students in local communities. Earlier this year, it deepened its commitment to partnering with high school DECA and FBLA (Future Business Leaders of America) groups: Individual high school students who participate in DECA or FBLA programs and enroll at Nichols are eligible to receive the newly created the Business Forward Scholarship.
Other ways Nichols partners with local high schools include the Nichols Honors Academy with Bartlett and Northbridge high schools; the College Connection for female students at Bartlett High School; offering an accelerator course for high school students for 10 consecutive semesters; holding DECA Days; and the Global Awareness Program partnership with Shepherd Hill Regional High School in Dudley. Articulation agreements for hospitality and accounting programs enable students to count their completed high school work as equivalent to specific Nichols courses.
Lorraine U. Martinelle is director of public relations and social media at Nichols College, in Dudley, Mass.