Students from the College of Business visited New York City during the Thanksgiving break. Accompanied by Danny Harvey, program director of financial planning program and finance faculty, seven students visited several sites like the New York Federal Reserve, the New York Stock Exchange and the Museum of American Finance. “’From the classroom to the trading floor: A tour of Wall St.’ was designed to expose students to opportunities that exist in the financial industry within investment banks,” said Harvey, “It was also to establish relationships with these investment firms and the College of Business at Prairie View A&M University.”
Students were selected based on grades, resume, involvement, and desire. While on the trip, students visited Williams Capital and Castle Oaks, smaller minority-owned investment banks, and larger investment banks like Bank of America/Merill Lynch and Goldman Sachs. They also visited BNY Mellon, the oldest investment and custodian bank in the country. “All of these entities gave the students a broad and specific view of the industry,” said Harvey.
Meisha Greer is a senior Finance major from Austin who participated in the trip. “I enjoyed the places we visited because it was a diverse group of small and large firms as well as black-owned investment firms where we were able to meet the CEO,” said Greer. Before going on the trip, Greer desired to walk on a real trading floor of an investment company and see what it looked like as they worked on the Bloomberg terminal. While there, she had the opportunity to network with professionals and learn more about the investment industry. “I think we all learned a lot about how investment firms work and what they do on a day to day,” said Greer, “This helped us with deciding if this is a career path we would want to pursue.”
Harvey said he believes the students took from the trip what he intended and more. “They saw the connection of what they learn in class to the real world,” said Harvey, “They got exposure.” He plans on making another trip to New York City with students in the future.
