McCallum Graduate School: Corporate Finance and Global Financial Analysis - Essay Example

After attending your informational session, I've become affirmed in my belief that Bentley's McCallum Graduate School is an that will adequately provide me with an opportunity for growth in the skills that I'll need in order to reach my short-term career goal of making my way onto the trading floor of an investment company. Bentley is among the best in incorporating technology into the classroom environment. I couldn't imagine a better example of this then the state-of-the-art trading floor facility.

In addition, I feel the communal environment of Bentley will give me a great opportunity to learn from other students and to grow as one of them. Bentley College will also help me find my niche by helping me understand what my areas of focus should be in my studies.During the informational session, I must admit I was impressed with how Bentley's curriculum integrates business studies with the application of information technologies. Technology moves fast, and what is state-of-the-art now may be obsolete in a week.

To my satisfaction, however, it seems your school is constantly improving the technology infrastructure of the classroom. I'm impressed with how students who are unable to physically attend a class due to work obligations can interact in the classroom through use of remote technology from the workplace. This illustrates the high dedication the faculty has to applying information technology as a tool for student success. Another aspect that I'm quite fond of is the way the trading room offers students with firsthand exposure to financial concepts that give them not only "book knowledge," but also the working knowledge needed to succeed.

The opportunity to learn how to operate with real-time data streaming from Reuters and Fact is exciting. In addition, the chance to become well-experienced in the use of software packages (such as Bloomberg and Morningstar) will be helpful in expanding my range of job opportunities when I enter the investment trading industry. No other college in the state can claim to have resources that offer their students, especially those dedicated to careers in trading, with the kind of hands-on, real-world applicable experience that Bentley's trading room offers.

One thing that attracts me to Bentley College is the campus environment of the business college. While attending UMass (Univ. of Massachusetts, Amherst), I truly enjoyed the campus environment and feeling of community. Such an environment allows me to get to know other students with similar life aspirations and experiences. This interaction let me learn from others while growing together as students. Perhaps the intertwining of academics and community, while fostering social responsibility, is just one reason Princeton Review/Random House featured Bentley College in Colleges with a Conscience: 81 Great Schools with Outstanding Community Involvement.

In addition, the information guide says that average class size is approximately 24 students. This moderate class size will allow more opportunity for one-on-one interaction with instructors as well as fellow students. In my undergraduate years, I was crammed into classrooms with upwards of 50 students, and never experienced the kind of close personal interaction that smaller class sizes would allow. I want to be part of a learning environment, not a "degree factory," one that will provide all the tools needed to succeed.

McCallum Graduate School has focuses in corporate finance, global financial analysis, and quantitative finance. I find myself most intrigued by the quantitative field. After discussing it with a professor at the informational session, this focus seems pretty fresh and full of potential for innovation. I'm enthusiastic to learn to use mathematical theories, equations, and formulas in order to calculate risk, to "understand the role of valuation and the use of financial market instruments" (informational guide).