On Thursday September 7 th I went to a trading seminar organized by Traders@Baruch.

I’ve been trading ever since 8th grade so this club was my natural choice among all the other organizations in Baruch ecosystem. As I arrived on the trading floor I saw 73 dressed up upperclassmen setting up their trading stations. As it turned out most of them, unlike me, had been there before.  The president of the club stepped to the front and told us “Finish setting up your computers, the first competition is starting in 5 minutes”. Wow I though, just like real world trading this club is strictly about business, there are no introductions for curious freshmen (there weren’t many of those), no long speeches and wasting time; trade or die, just how I like it. The first round started 1 second after I finished the express setup of my trading desk, for the next 300 seconds (that’s how long the competition lasts) I could hear my brain sizzling inside of my head as I drew lines, made orders and scanned the trading books for arbitrage opportunities that came and went within seconds as the fastest traders filled them before anyone else could understand what happened. After the 300 intense seconds came to an end the results were shown on a huge display in front of the room, my name was at the 5th place, I felt proud and knew that this club is where I will belong for the next 4 years.

After the competiton we listened to a professor explaining option pricing models and bunch of other technical aspects of trading which we will need to understand in order to compete in this year’s Rotman Trading Competition at MIT. After the lecture I talked to other club and E-board members, they were very friendly and recommended me to apply for their mentorship program which gives freshmen and sophomores a great opportunity to learn how to trade and meet people from the industry. My interview is tomorrow so wish me luck 🙂