Month: November 2017

For the third blog post, I went to a workshop called “Small Talk: It’s a Big Deal!” with Tony on November 8. The reason why I chose this workshop because my first language was Chinese, I was poor conversation with others in English. We learned a lot in this workshop and it is very helpful to use in conversations, presentation or even interview in our life.

When we sat down, Ellen Stein came to everyone to sad hi, shaking hands and introduction herself with smiling. Next, we have small talk with each other to fill the name on the blanks in few questions. We knew each other during the small talk. In this workshop, I learned the ways to start conversations such as introduce yourself, ask a closed-ended question, make a positive light-hearted comment and offer a compliment followed by an easy to answer. Give a good impression is very important when we met a new friend. It is very important to remember his/her name, it remembered me that the first day we met in First Year Seminar class, we play the game to try remembering everyone name. We also talk something about the body language and tips for conversation in this workshop. If you have the close body language, it is very hard to talk with other. For example, crossed your arms, shake your head. Eye contact shows that you are listening and talking an interest in what is being said. Body language we should notice and show your power.

I went to The Spotlight Series: Careers in Risk Management workshop with my friends in October. we are the first group of people arrived there, then we used the computer in the room to register for the workshop because we cannot find a place to register it before we go.  After we find some seats and be ready to have the workshop, more and more people came into the room: most of them are graduate and undergraduate seniors.

The lecturer spoke very clearly about the career about the credit risk in management and introduced several positions that credit risk management can have: the credit risk Analyst and Managers can find a job in investment and commercial banks, insurance companies, rating agencies to be asset managers, and hedge funds. Regulatory and stress testing is also part of Credit risk management, they can also work with bank regulators, bank, consulting companies.  Quantitative jobs in this area like developing credit models for calculation of the probability of default, loss given default, losses, VaR can work in banks, insurance companies, and regulators. Then the second lecturer showed a statistic graph of value at risk. It shows that 99% of the economic capital was in Expected loss and VAR. Then another lecturer Toni Angelov summarized the idea about credit risk management: it can simply define as a potential that a bank borrower or counterparty will fail to meet its obligations in accordance with agrees items. Also, he explained his idea of the development of credit risk management.

Although the workshop is too long for me, it is still a wonderful experience because it is about business. Workshops like this are worth to go because it is good for us to learn more about business in order to be more realized.

I went to The Spotlight Serves: Careers in Risk Management workshop with some of my friends after school on October tenth, 2017. We knew it will have a workshop after class and it was hold by the STARR. We did not register, and we went directly which almost have no seats for us. But we were lucky and at around 5pm, the workshop began.

It was a workshop form with three presentations. The speakers were very seasoned, they made the speeches very detail and full of their own experiences, which included the reasons why they were succeed today. Most of the students who attended the workshop were Juniors, Seniors, and graduate students. I remembered the speaker asked the grade of us, we were ready to raise our hands when he asked if he had any freshmen. However he did not ask. For me, the presentations were a little bit hard for understanding, because they used a lot of academic words, which i never heard before. The problems was even  I took a lot of notes, and also did some researches but it was still difficult. All the  students payed a lot of attention listening the speakers and taking plenty of notes. It was a new experience for me also, because I never went to an activity as a workshop. It was hard, but interesting even though it was not an activity for fun. I hope after I learn more and attend more workshops, because it can give me more experience for future career and learn more skills.

On November 8, 2017, as part of the Career Blog, I went to the “Small Talk: It’s a Big Deal!” workshop. It started with a staff member Ellen Stein introducing herself to each of us, lately discussing her actions and its importance. At the same time shortly went over certain things that are going to be in this workshop. Technically majority of the participants of the event were a freshman, who for the same reason as am I. However, there were also a couple of sophomores, juniors, and seniors who joined us. Honestly, I expected it to be some a lecture type workshop but, it turns out to be more like an impromptu communication with people which was fun.
To begin with, most of us came with friends with whom we spoke for the most except, in few instances when all of us had a visual contact with everyone else. Like, when we had to examine facial expressions and posture to decide with whom we would like to talk. Apparently, most of us couldn’t keep serious about the assignment so began to giggle. In fact, through this experiment, we learned how it impacts our perspective of others and their openness to the conversation.
By the way, as we arrived, we had received a student guide which contains helpful tips how to keep the conversation going and being aware of cliches. Overall, it was a great experience so don’t miss a chance to join it next time. At last, here is the most important advice: always try to remember the Name of the person with whom you have had spoken.

For my career blog, I went to the Starr development center due to me being sick and not able to attend a career fair. I didn’t know where it was but I knew it was on the first floor so I had to look around for awhile. After a while, I saw a sign to where it was but I still went to the wrong room. I asked if it was the Starr career development and the women working there said ” the wrong office” then she directed me to the right office. When I into the office there was so many candies laying around and I wanted to have some. When I walked in it was so empty so I was little nervous of why no one was there? The lady there asked me if it was my first time coming here and I said “yes”. She then gave me some papers on how to make an appointment so pretty much like writing center.

The lady talked to me for a while and explained to me what I should expect from the center and the important information I should remember if not writing it down. When I went home and tried to make an appointment most of the days were filled so I went back to the office. They said they were free and could help me. I sat with them and they basically asked me what I was interested in and what classes I should take and events I should attend in school or outside of school that would give me meaningful information. The information they gave me was really helpful. I am trying to major accounting but they expended my option and my interest in other majors.

 

 

 

 

On October 19th, I decided to go to the Careers in Start-Up workshop. When I walked into the room, there were already plenty of people sitting down as well as lined up to sign in. I was waiting in line with Emily, curious of how my experience will be like. After signing in, we sat all the way in the back, waiting for the speakers to start. The twin speakers Vadim and Sergei Revzin introduced themselves and started engaging us in what we know about start ups. As they were talking, they were also showing a lengthy slideshow to divert our attention to what they were talking about. Their experiences and life stories of their own start up and struggles was pretty interesting. It gave me an idea of a possible choice for my future. Overall, I think that building a company from scratch is hard but the effort builds up and can eventually bring me somewhere. They also talked about jobs and how to obtain one as well as foundation skills of jobs. They discussed that networking is helpful and being prepared to interviews is beneficial. I have learned a lot from the workshop and may take part in opportunities.