Freshman Seminar Fall 17 CRA

Bloomberg Workshop

Not knowing what to do for my career blog and with the due date approaching quickly, I had a limited option of what to do and where to go. With not many options, I was at first stuck. However, having heard of the Bloomberg workshop from a few of my classmates, I decided to go and check it out myself to see what it is all about. This certain workshop itself cost $24,000. With only a limited number of computers for this workshop, specifically 11, I was able to find myself one sharing it with another classmate. In front of us were 2 computers side by side. Having 2 computers allowed us to see the changes in stocks for many companies much easier as it expanded on both screens. Along with the computer, there was a special keyboard which I have never seen before because certain keys were highlights with certain colors. The instructor showed and taught us how to read a company’s data through their stocks and graphs. This somehow caught my attention and I found interest in this workshop because this workshop allows me to be able to search for a company’s history and what they did to get their earnings. This workshop prepares me to what is to come in the future for I am to find a career in finance. This allows me to have a certain idea of how revenue works and what goes on. Before this workshop, I paid no mind to stocks and revenue reports because I never understood it. After going to the Bloomberg workshop, I can now somewhat understand stocks, revenue reports, and their cause. I have more of a heads up on what is to come and this workshop has made it easier for me when searching for my career.  

Bloomberg Workshop

Attending my first workshop in Baruch. I didn’t quite know what I was attending. All I knew was that I had to attend a workshop in order to write this blog, and that I was following my friends. Upon arrival, there were only 10 designated stations that had the specialized program called “Bloomberg”. The program itself costs $24,000 a year. The stations were also accompanied by specialized Bloomberg keyboards as well. There was well over 10 students within that workshop, so we had to share between 2-3 students per station.

For a bit of background to what Bloomberg is, Bloomberg is a professional service that provides financial software tools. The financial software tools are such as an analytics and equity trading platform, data services, and news to financial companies and organizations through the Bloomberg Terminal.

The instructor of the workshop was teaching us how to navigate through the program itself. He showed us how to open data, equity, and charts that show the companies history. There are certain keys that you can type as a shortcut to navigate through the program. He then told us to look at the history chart of a specific company. He then proceeded to teach us on how to transfer the data from chart onto Microsoft Excel.

The instructor was patient, and went around the room helping those who were struggling to follow his instructions. The course itself did not teach us how to analyze the data or what the information presented meant. The only thing we learned was how to navigate through the program, and how to transfer the information. Overall I found the workshop to be quite useless for someone who doesn’t have a core fundamental understanding.

Career Workshop Blog

The first thing everyone tells you about the “College Experience” is that you get a lot more free time to yourself. With morning classes, Working 30 hours a week, Family responsibilities, Prior commitments, and friends there comes a point where it feels like there’s not enough hours in a day to get through life. You start out studying for a music test get side tracked by a call from your boss and end up having to drive your mom to your aunt’s house and forget about the paper due in 48 hours and the test you have to study for that’s the following day. Overall college life has just been a big step for me and i’m trying to adjust.

This morning my friend Noor asked me “what did you write your blog post on?” it sent me back in a spiral. I completely forgot that we had a blog post due Wednesday night. She told me about the event she was going to with a group of my fellow pears from our freshmen seminar class and would count towards the career workshop section of the blogs we had to have written. Going to a Bloomberg seminar brought back a lot of memories from me. As the presenter went on to explain what stocks were, what a Bloomberg terminal was, and the amazing facts behind not only how expensive they were but the vast opportunities that it offered took me back to my days as an intern working at Macquarie. My favorite part of the internship was the fact I had access to a Bloomberg terminal and got to physically trade with it. The charts on Bloomberg are so much better than the ones I use now on Trading-View.  The instructor advised us on many details about the terminals. Facts that I didn’t even know. One for all was the amazing fact that there is a small key at the bottom that when pressed you get live help from a Bloomberg operator.  Using one for 6 weeks I was not aware of this at all and instantaneously regretted all of the minor questions I asked my boss while on the job.

Overall the experience was great. I had read online about Baruch being one of the very few colleges to have a live trading floor and was excited to be able to see it. As a future finance major it felt nice to be welcomed with open arms into the trading floor and learn about the different learning programs offered by Baruch. Ill definitely be signing up for more in the future after I can finish all the work I have on my plate now.

#FreshmenSeminar #CareerBlog #IThinkThisIsEnoughHastagsSalma

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The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Last weekend, a friend and I decided to tour around New York City and one of the events we attended was an exhibit at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. As we walked through the expansive hallways, we came across countless murals and sculptures that presided there. One of the more memorable paintings that I noticed was No.16 by Mark Rothko. As I looked at the painting, I felt myself immersed into the painting. It was as if I was trapped within the confines of the medium and experienced a multitude of emotions that it elicited. I felt very compelled by the piece and looked it up online as I was there. I had learned that the artist was a very famous pioneer of an art movement called Abstract Expressionism. One of the defining attributes of this era was the avant-garde approach to art. He had many conditions for his paintings when they were displayed such as dark lighting, close up observance, etc. The reasons for this were because Rothko wanted his audience to experience the juxtapositions of elation and anger through the contrast of colors. This was significant because it taught me that like college, life comes has many moments of anxiety accompanied by the novelty of it. From this, I managed to mitigate my anxiety when meeting new people and adjusted to the new school environment. I stood in front of the painting once again and viewed it under such conditions. The feeling was completely different; it felt very eerie and as if I was being dragged into the darkness provided by each brush stroke. To conclude my day, we moved on from Rothko’s No.16 and viewed other parts of the gallery.

Bloomberg Trading System, The Bang That’s Worth Your Buck.

The stockroom, displaying the Bloomberg Trading System, as well as a much larger display of the specific keyboard affiliated with it

I don’t even know where to start, I like many of my peers was distraught on what to do for my next blog post, since I checked off student life, and was saving academics for my last blog post in the light of an upcoming class trip to the MoMa. With career being my last workshop left, I decided to turn to the trusted Baruch email, where the weekly newsletter highlights the week’s key events and workshops. I immediately saw “Bloomberg” on many dates, uncertain of what it was I decided to pursue it anyways, due to it being flexible with my schedule. I am so happy I decided to go! Being, undecided in my major (in terms of whether I want move forward in Economics or Finance) the workshop opened my eyes, and just made my decision even harder. The Bloomberg Trading System, was founded by Michael Bloomberg in 1981, and the system comes with a rather hefty price tag at 24,000 a year. However, Baruch in the stock floor offers 11 of these computers, meaning they have 11 subscriptions. At first, I was like how could such a little colored keyboard cost so much, when there are alternatives like Google Finance, Yahoo Finance, and even one provided by CNN. But then as the workshop I quickly began to understand, why thousand of subscribers use the system. One of the things that I found most interesting was, the little question mark symbol that appears on each of the Bloomberg screens, and once you click on the question mark it explains whatever you are looking at. The system also has a help and search button, however it isn’t like any other. That is because, When you press that green search button (familiar to the Bloomberg keyboard), it opens the search engine,and you  can put in any trending queries or what you’re looking for, when you type what you’re looking for, press enter or go. What comes up is a help menu, that will try to figure out what you’re looking for, whereas, the left hand side gives categories, narrows it down to what you’ll most likely be looking for. This can be used if you’re unsure what bloomberg has. A little tip is, by pressing F1 key, does all of this with skipping the steps. The workshop also taught me, the function of: Ticker F8 and DES, Ticker F8 RV, Ticker F8 ANR, Ticker F8 GP, where ticker is the company’s abbreviation (e.g Visa, its ticker is V).  The blogpost is to limited to explain it all, but if you are interested, Bloomberg University events, classes, and web events that you can sign up for. You Can even make your own sign up, build your own portfolio, and watch your own information, but  must sign up at the terminal(Stock Room).

Bloomberg. No not the former mayor.

Having a 5 hour long break between classes leaves a lot of free time for virtually anything. As me and my group of friends wandered around the campus we eventually ended up in the library’s first floor. On the right-hand side of the turnstiles, past a card swipe, was the Baruch stock trading floor which was currently hosting a workshop called “Bloomberg”. Bloomberg is a sort of stock-trading organizer/search bar/ multi-tool that allows the user to sell, buy, or check stocks. The advisor, after everyone settled in, started with the basics of booting up Bloomberg and explained to us what stocks are. Basically, stocks are the ownership and capital of a company. Depending on the market and how well the company does, they may rise or fall and the end-objective of playing the stock market is to buy at the lows and sell at the highs. You effectively become a cartoonish monopoly man albeit without a monocle. We were taught how to search for and monitor stocks in Bloomberg whilst also learning the many shortcuts and such to speed up the process. However, the keyboard we used was modified with keys specific to stock trading and even a few physical variations. The advisor then showed us how to monitor company performances which would give us indications on whether or not to buy and sell stocks. The workshop was incredibly confusing at times but had piqued some interest in me. I intend to major in finance and my first look more or less in the financial field had yielded a sort of competition to me. While everyone would love to be a “wolf of wall street” and get away with a 2008-esque financial crisis the technical aspects of finance, exposed to me by Bloomberg, has pushed me more into the financial field.

Bloomberg-What Are Stocks?

For my blog post this week I decided to go to Workshop about a company called “Bloomberg”.  In the workshop we learned about software called “Bloomberg Terminal”. According to the instructor, people in the finance world use the software to buy and sell things called “stocks”. A stock represent partial ownership in a company so if someone were to believe that a company had potential to grow and make money, they can buy the stock. When the company growths their ownership in the company or the stock will gain in value to represent the company’s value increasing. All the different stocks are traded on something called the stock market. Some investors use the Bloomberg Terminal to do long term value analysis on different companies, while others analyze charts to try to predict the next price. Stocks are not the only item however that a Bloomberg Terminal is used for. The Bloomberg Terminal also allows people to buy different currencies, commodities, and treasury bonds. Another interesting fact I learned is that the Bloomberg softwares is not cheap. The software can cost up to $2000 per month per computer, and usually banks need to purchase hundreds of Terminals to supply to their whole staff. Through the workshop I took a small stop forward to further understand the complex world of finance and what it has to offer. Also the value that a Bloomberg Terminal has to offer by supplying live real time stock market news, detailed financial information, and different suggestions based on knowledgeable analysts from different banks.

 

 

 

 

 

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Bloomberg! -Victor Deng

As my friends and I began to leave our English class, we were faced with a dilemma. We did not know what to do with our 5 hour break until our next class, so we browsed through the list of events that are happening at Baruch. There was a Bloomberg workshop that intrigued me since I wanted to learn more about stocks and how prices are altered. I decided to attend the workshop and luckily there were some computers left. I quickly sat down and observed the dual monitors filled with graphs and numbers. The instructor taught me how to read revenue reports, social media influence of stock prices, and how to import real time prices onto Microsoft Excel. The Bloomberg program is similar to a search engine where you enter certain commands for information about public companies. Revenue reports displayed quarterly earnings from products and the services associated with it. Apple reported 78 billion quarterly revenue as the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus and about 7 billion of this revenue was due to services such as apps. I like the fact that I able to use this program to browse their reports for their revenue and the reasoning for it; this includes expansion of foreign markets and their new hardware changes. Going forward, instead of being overwhelmed by large numbers regarding how much money public companies make, I am able to read reports that justify where the money is coming from. This is imperative to my future since I am looking forward to invest in both short and long term investments when I feel ready. I also would like to pursue a career in investment banking so this workshop helped me pave a road towards that field.

A Warm Welcome to Delta Sigma Pi: Brotherhood Panel

I walked slowly up to my friend, clearly in the middle of a conversation with someone else. We had agreed to go to some fraternity meeting before. As I walked toward him, the person he was talking with turned to me, almost in sync with my approach. She enthusiastically advised me join Delta Sigma Pi, I explained how I was actually on my way there, and after a short conversation, I headed off with my friend. To be frank, I wasn’t the least bit interested in actually joining. I had went to another frat’s meeting a few days prior and I was more keen to join that one, however I had forgotten to get a picture, which I needed for the blog; this was just a means to that end. As I waited for meeting to begin I ran into Mina and Irene from my block, and in the midst of  our waiting a member came to speak to Mina, mentioning they had met from a previous event. Her friendly personality seemed rather inviting.

Walking inside, we again waited for everything to set up, and yet another member approached me and introduced herself and told me a little about the fraternity. I felt welcomed, though I had not met any of them previously nor gone to there other events, they showed an interest in getting around to meeting the people attending. It was strange, but nice; I had been accustomed to generally being responsible for initiating conversations in most situations- either that or sit in silence, yet that wasn’t the case here.

The particular event was about the more experienced members of the fraternity talking about there internships and moreover their most favorable escapades in the fraternity. Interesting in its own right, I noticed not only did only they seem to have the same prestigious internships as the other frat, if not more, but also came off more like a family as well.

 

Delta Sigma Pi

My name is Irene Kerpelev and I am currently a freshman undergraduate student at Baruch college. Many of the older students and teachers started off the semester by saying how important clubs were in Baruch and how different the students’ college experiences would be if they became part of at least one. A commuter school by nature, Baruch makes it simple to attend classes without creating bonds. However, with clubs friendships and community participation flourishes.
A friend of mine, also a freshman student, told me about a business fraternity, Delta Sigma Pi (DSP). I decided to attend a meeting and see if I liked it. The meeting involved free food (always a bonus!) and a panel of older students discussing their successful internships. They talked about choosing their majors, applying for internships, and how much help they had received from DSP. Each member had their own unique stories, experiences, and advice. Well fed and attentive, the potential new members sat in silence and took in their words seriously. Many of the things the older members talked about felt very relatable to me, and certainly to most, if not all, of the audience.
I really felt like I understood Baruch and its students more after the meeting, and every member was extremely nice and approachable. I remember the names of several of the older members and I felt the bonds and strength of the beliefs they shared. After the meeting, I understood what older students meant when they said a club would make Baruch a completely different experience. I can say with certainty that I will attend more meetings and become a full fledged member of DSP, because I am truly interested in the club and the people who are part of it.