Realistic, hands-on learning is always beneficial to students looking for real-life experience as they prepare for the professional world. With that in mind, the School of Business offers its finance students an incredible tool with its Securities Analysis Center.
An interactive environment located within a second-floor room in Lumpkin Hall, the SAC provides students with stock market tickers and large-screen monitors displaying information from major stock market indices and a stock portfolio managed by Eastern students. From the School of Business website:
The SAC provides students with experiential learning opportunities. Finance students enrolled in FIN 4220 (Applied Securities Analysis) are given the opportunity to integrate investment and portfolio management concepts with applications to real-time portfolio managements. Through the Securities Analysis Center, students manage an actual portfolio and make decisions based on current market conditions and analysis.
”It’s real money, real decisions,” said Jesse Green, a finance student recently enrolled in FIN 4220 during the Fall 2012 semester. “This semester, we’ve outperformed the S&P 500 by about 3 percent.”
Green also takes part in the Student Investment Society, which heavily utilizes the SAC and describes itself as “a student-based organization that manages a small portfolio of stocks.”
EIU alumnus Paul Ruedi donated the original sum of money for SIS’s operations, and now the group holds weekly meetings at which members discuss potential investments.
“It’s open to all majors,” said Green. “Anyone that’s interested in investing. We all get together and pitch our independent research to the class. We end up voting on stocks that are both winning and losing.”
Drs. Ingyu Chiou and Patrick Lach advise the group, but all its decisions are student-oriented. The gains and losses are totally the responsibility of its members, and the ultimate goal is to use profits to initiate a scholarship fund.
“This experience is really invaluable for me personally,” adds Green. “It’s going to be very helpful in my future career. It has allowed me to get in front of groups and very confidently pitch my ideas and be very confident in my research and abilities.”
