- Like most of the freshman this time around, I decided to attend the Bloomberg workshop. Despite having no idea what a Bloomberg terminal was or how it worked, I entered the trading floor with excitement and a willingness to learn. The first thing I noticed was the strange setup of the Bloomberg computers and keyboard. The keyboard had some keys that were color coded and had special labels. Instead of one monitor there were two, with wires snaking together in the back and joining together at the plug. Once I was logged in I opened the Bloomberg application and the screen turned black, with yellow writing covering the monitors and some open tabs where I could type in searches. The instructor then proceeded to begin explaining some of the plentiful functions of the terminal, such as the help icon which was in the form of a question mark at the top right of the screen. He began delving into different searches we could make, such as checking up on a certain year’s revenue for different companies. The example he used was VISA. Then, he began showing us the different i icons on the left side of the screen which could reveal more and more details in regards to the search. I was fascinated and felt so adult and like I was a part of something secret only only a few people are ever able to grasp. Admittedly, I was very confused the entire time as I had no previous experience with trading computers, stocks, or anything in this particular field. However, I was so intrigued by the program that I decided that I wanted to try out taking a class which would teach me the basics and explain to me step by step all the functions of trading computers so one day I could use the Bloomberg terminal with full confidence.
Bloomberg Workshop
“What were we even doing there?” I thought to myself. We don’t even know how to trade yet and we are learning about a 2000 dollar system that has enough features to drive you insane. It was not a bad experience, simply one that would of been avoided if I knew the content would simply be a summary of a program that none of us could really use effectively at the time because of a lack of basic understanding in trading.
To this extent in the future maybe I will come to be very grateful to some of the knowledge I have gained at the event. When I understand the theory of trading and can accurately use the technology of Bloomberg, I will be golden for a career as a trader.
One of the incredible features of Bloomberg that really impressed me was the social media tracker that could analyze all social media posts for companies and rate them as negative or positive for the company’s stock. It displayed everything from the volume of posts about the company, how negative the comments were, and how the stock price was effected. What was interesting was that while many stocks were affected by the news about 30% showed no change in direction after the media and social network attention.
I am one that believes in behavioral economics, people do not act rationally most of the time, unlike how economists model things. To this extent I am happy to have attended this event even if it was to learn only one thing that I found extremely useful. With the information that Bloomberg makes simple to attain, one can begin to make strategies and theories for trading successfully.
Bloomberg Workship
I didn’t really plan on going, but thought might as well get it over with. Greeted by the professor, I felt welcomed, regardless of the fact I had no idea what the words and numbers on the screens meant. He quickly explained how this $2000 product was so useful. However walking into the room he had to disclosed only some of the computers could run the program. Some proprietary colored keyboards that took advantage of the software with useful shortcuts at arms reach. A quick search for Vista Card a history of the companies earnings and the companies projected income for the years to come, made from highly calculated guesses from financial analysis. I just sat there thinking “Is this what businesses majors entail?” I was in awe of how bored I felt, I realized in all the talk of marginal revenue and extensive company research at my disposal, I didn’t want to work in this type of career. Something so monotonous, lacking basic interest, day in and day out sitting behind a computer to look at these arbitrary numbers for some larger financial vendetta. During the workshop I felt a bit more certain about what I wanted to do.
Of course working at Bloomberg would be an amazing opportunity, but knowing which opportunities are for you, and which rabbit holes are worth going down is a part of growing up. I had looked at many internship opportunities in the past, a few of which was offered by Bloomberg, and I remember Bloomberg always mentioned how they are looking for someone who can handle large amounts of work at a time. That they would be working a lot with data and things of that nature. I watched the professor run through the maze that was the Bloomberg software, no doubt something I’d become rather accustom to if I wanted a job involving number crunching.
Translanguaging
Normally I don’t go to targeted centers that help with writing. I usually just get my writing done the way I feel is best and just submit. I am always open to feedback, so I went to the translanguaging workshop at the Writing Center. Translanguaging is the use of other language resources in order to enhance writing. The first thing they did was discuss write ins. This is like the task to get us to brainstorm and think of ideas to start the workshop. Thinking of languages and how we would change the concepts we brought in was the task here. Since we were discussing translanguaging, we had to shift our ideas into different languages. I took Italian in high school so that helped me. I took 4 years of it but I never had to convey ideas between languages. Saying one thing like in Italian and relaying it to the other in English was difficult. For example talking about certain slang words have no direct translation in Italian. The paper I brought in to work on was filled with this. The challenging part was translating these ideas between the languages. I brought in a piece of classwork writing from my English class and that is what I used for the workshop. In the middle they discussed certain strategies like using people as resources to help translate languages. Not all words and ideas would have direct translations so you need to figure out close relations. Translanguaging really helped show how converting ideas between the languages can expand the writing to give it a bigger feeling.
Club Fair
Although I was already in United Chinese Language Association club, I still decided to go to the club fair to visit them and support them! Even though I am in a club, I never went to a club fair; I didn’t go to the one during conviction day because I just didn’t bother. I heard of the club from someone I know and joined their Facebook page for updates and that’s how I joined their first general interest meeting and it just went from there. Back to the club fair, I was amazed by what was happening, even though all the clubs weren’t present there. A lot of major clubs were and they were all welcoming and giving out free stuff, like free food, free drinks, free water bottles, free mugs, free t-shirts, and free condoms. It was interesting as this guy walked around the whole gym handing people condoms and people just hanging around for free stuff. I didn’t bother with the free stuff as I was too lazy so I stuck around for an hour at my club’s booth helping them pitch and taking their candies. Since standing around was boring, the chair members of the club decided to play limbo with the club sign and I joined for one round. Overall the club fair was fun, a lot of free stuff, too bad I was lazy that day or else I would’ve gotten the free t-shirts, they were cute. Anyway student life for me has been great, tomorrow we are having a mooncake DIY workshop, where we will be making mooncakes because today is the Moon Festival. I am looking forward to it because it is my first time making mooncakes, I don’t know how we will make it in a classroom but we will. Happy Moon Festival!
Reading the lines
It was a trade-off going to this workshop.
Me and my friends were contemplating going to the 6th floor computer lab to enjoy some quality bonding game time. Instead we ended up taking seats in front of computers not really knowing what was going to happen.
The computer we sat in front of was open and had a program running. Bloomberg, shortly afterwards introduced as a overpriced program with functions that are highly specialized. Honestly we didn’t know know what was going on but we knew how to read a line chart. We tried as best we can to follow the directions provided for the next hour and struggled to stay awake. As interesting as trading seems this session was like telling us to play the piano without learning the theory. We can play with it and hopefully learn a few things along the way but without knowing the basics we are disadvantaged at playing this game.
Nonetheless, I hope my friends at least got something out of it that I missed. I can’t think of a reason to come back in the future but will continue in my endevours to learn to play this game that has so much to offer depending on our knowledge.
This experience probably leveled me up. If we just went to the computer lab to play games we could have had a fun time but not really learn anything new. By going to something that we had no clue what was about we were able to note another perspective life has to offer. Like jumping out a plane and experiencing parachuting for the first time, ive never done it but wish to, we can feel the thrill of something new rushing past us and if it leaves us feeling elevated then you only have yourself to thank for taking the first step towards you.
Bloomberg Workshop
When I first heard about the Bloomberg Workshop, I had no idea what to expect because I have never heard of this software before. To be really honest, I thought it was somehow connected to the previous Mayor Bloomberg. But I learned that the Bloomberg Terminal was a program used to keep track of different companies and stocks. It was very interesting to me, even though I was still very confused by the end of the workshop. I knew very little about stocks, and seeing all those numbers split into two computer screens accompanied by a colorful keyboard was very hectic at first. But as the instructor taught us the basics, I learned how to find the different stocks and data a company had. It was very interesting to see the history of different companies and their products. For example, the data for iPods were discontinued in 2014 (I think, I forgot) due to it’s decline in popularity and demand.
I would say that this workshop gave me my first ever insight in the world of economics and finance. Stocks had always seemed very intimidating and confusing to me but this workshop showed me that with a little bit of learning, it’s not as hard as it seems. Of course, all of it is still confusing since the instructor just taught us how to work the program. It also made me proud to be part of a school that provides access to extremely pricey programs like these. Maybe one day I’ll be more comfortable with the program, but it was definitely interesting to learn about something completely new.
Bloomberg
I was in my English class and the last thing on my mind was that I had a blog post to do. So many things were on my mind with midterms coming up. I decided to check out the Baruch app and see what they had for me. I read through and found this Bloomberg trading event very intriguing. I figured it would help me see if I would want to do something like that in the future. I entered a little late and everyone seemed very interested in what was going on. I was excited because it was my first time in the trade room. I felt very sophisticated and smart. I walked in as the guy was talking about how to read revenues and profits. I also thought that the teacher would be very boring like many others, but he connected with us. He engaged a conversation within us, so it didn’t feel like a boring lecture. He sparked some of my classmates questions and caught our attention. He also showed us how to read some revenues, then asked us practice questions to sort of test us. This definitely made it more successful. Sadly, this workshop had to come to an end. We were very disappointed in that. I learned a lot of things that I never understood before. Now I understand more about stocks and revenues then I did before. Now I am going to consider finance as my major because it truly is fascinating. I am glad he took our information down and is going to invite us to more of his events. 
Economics Club Meeting
For my second activity for the freshman seminar, I went to the Finance and Economics Society meeting on Thursday during club hours. I initially joined this club because I had to join one for freshman seminar, but also because economics is my favorite class and I could put it on my resume to impress places that I’m looking at for internships or jobs in the future. To start off the meeting, I introduced myself to some of the club members because I hadn’t been to the club before. I talked to one of the clubs directors who gave me the sign in sheet and told me to put my name and email down to join. He told me that although I had missed that weeks activity of having my resume looked over, that I could still bring it In next week to have it looked over even more. Besides this, I was told that the club talks about economic issues going on around the world, concepts that are taught in certain classes, as well as how the economy affects us daily. For this meeting however, we went over the resumes and as soon as that was done, we then were allowed to talk to one another. I didn’t know anyone else at the meeting so I talked with another freshman at the club, Michael. He turned out to be a very interesting person and we share the common interests of the company Alibaba, sneakers, and the stock market in general since he is an investor as well. Overall, it was very interesting going to the meeting and I look forward to staying with this club for the rest of the year.
Bloomberg 2 Workshop
This wasn’t something I planned on going to nor did I have known that this kind of workshop existed at Baruch. I first learned about this workshop from a friend of mine and decided that as a group we would go together. I thought this workshop would be an influential person making a speech on how he or she got rich. I mean it is called “Bloomberg workshop” and the guy is the 11th richest person in America and the former mayor of NYC. But as I came into the workshop I saw a professor giving a lecture in the stock hall and didn’t think that was the workshop. It didn’t take long before I sat down and began to understand what they meant by “Bloomberg workshop”. Everyone inside the room was eager to learn about this program called “Bloomberg”. I never knew such programs existed before. It was my first time using this program and I have to admit it’s a pretty nice program. I believe the professor told us the reason why there are only 10 Bloomberg terminals in this room is that it costs $2000 a month to rent the program out per computer. During the workshop, I got to experience many different aspects of the program like exporting a stock list onto an excel sheet and also to be able to maneuver through the program. Although many of things that were said in the lecture I didn’t know at first I started to get a grasp at what the program was meant to do and why it’s important to have knowledge of this program. My favorite part of the program has to be when the professor showed us how social media directed at the company’s affect the prices of the stock. Overall it was a fun experience going to my first workshop with my group of friends not knowing what to do on the Bloomberg terminals and having a fun experience trying to follow up with the professor.