As some of you might remember, I’m a 2nd year Finance and Investment management student here at Northumbria. I very enjoy my course due to its investment banking nature and high volumes of practical tasks. What’s more, the lecturers are open for discussions and always prepared to provide extra help.
Is math expertise required to do a finance course?
If you’re looking forward to adding ‘further maths’ into your hobbies list before start studying finance, I have to disappoint you here. The exceptional math knowledge is not essential at all but the basic understanding will definitely assist you throughout the course. To be honest, when I was in my high school I didn’t even pass my AS-level maths. Instead, I took advance accounting and I should admit this knowledge is extremely valuable when I do my fundamental research. Math never was my cup of tea and I even think that it’s my weakest subject.
Are you serious about investing?
First things first, regular finance is quite different from an investment banking industry.
If you’re planning to take finance and accounting, you will focus more on financial statements and finance tools available on the market. While in ‘Finance and Investment Management’ course, you will learn how to manage an investment portfolio, how to measure and control your risks, what financial tools to use to achieve a specific goal and a lot more. The world of finance is literally limitless and I guess this is exactly why I’m in love with it! However, our industry is quite intense and it’s not suitable for everyone. It’s really common to work long hours as you need to be awake way before the market opens to start generating investment ideas. Over the weekends, you would analyse the market environment and see what changes can influence your portfolio. So, it really is 24/7 job.
However, what is also exceptionally relevant to our industry is what we call
‘Work hard, Play Hard!’. No doubts you know Hollywood movies about stockbrokers and investors. Well, if you’ve seen them, you’d get a very clear picture what this industry is like!
How do I start my Day?
I wake up quite early - around 5.30am. I do my morning exercise, cook some breakfast and head to our Bloomberg trading room around 6.30am. Usually, when I come to Uni I’m the only person in the room. It is very important to be here before the market opens to benefit from morning volatility and therefore, increase the chances to earn more money. I would say the Bloomberg room is my favourite spot in the University. This was my key reason for choosing to come to Northumbria and do this course. Very few universities in the UK have such a good piece of software! It is our Bible, we live by it! There are millions of things you can learn on Bloomberg, it’s just like your personal investing mentor available at your fingertips.
Research! Execute! Profit!
If you enjoy checking fancy graphs, candle bars and analyse big volumes of date, then this course is definitely for you!
Bloomberg will change the way you see a daily life. Remember - always do your research! Investing is not a gamble, find out as much as you can about the asset of your investment.
Benefit from the societies
Every Wednesday I run ‘Finance and Trading society’ for our students. I’ve joined the society a year ago as a regular member and now I’m the president. Societies are great! I love spending time with other like-minded people and talk about topics that interest me. It’s amazing what you can learn by just spending time talking, most of my investing awareness comes from simple conversations. Northumbria has over 120 different societies and I’m sure you’d find the one that suits you.
Finally, apart from meeting great people, societies are an amazing tool to develop new skills and to build up your CV. It’s never too late to join
