Every July the Master's Degree in Banking and Quantitative Finance organises a Workshop for second year students to present their research work. But these meetings are so much more than a simple presentation.
20 january 2016
“Workshops”. In essence, as a word adopted from the English language, it describes a brief, intensive and participative concentration of people, with the aim to receive training on a specific subject. More interactive than a seminar or a symposium, less stretched out than a course or a congress.
In the Master’s Degree in Banking and Quantitative Finance, Workshops acquire an additional dimension. This is the end of two intense years of specialisation in the field of quantitative finance, the confirmation and demonstration of all the knowledge amassed, and also the first step into the professional world. This is the yearly Workshop of the Qfb Master’s.
What happens at the Workshop?
These Workshops serve as a meeting point between recent graduates from the Master’s Degree in Banking and Quantitative Finance and the sector’s businesses. But let’s not forget the main purpose of these conferences: to allow the Master’s students to present their research work (TFM).
Each student has 45 minutes scheduled for the presentation of his research work. This consists in the reading of his thesis, accompanied by his or her tutor(s), and the subsequent commentary led by an expert on the subject at hand. The conferences last two or three days depending on the number of students.
Aside from these presentations, other events take place during the Workshop. The most educational part is provided by the lecture given every year by an expert from the field of finance (in the last few years we have received CEOs or highly placed executives from Banco Santander, the IMF, BBVA or the CMNV).
Saved for the closure of this forum is the meeting between graduates and financial firms: last year 10 of them came to our Workshop to talk about their activities and to interview students. Risk assessment or portfolio management departments, businesses specialising in financial services, advisers…
Finally, we proceed with the evening meal and award ceremony for the Master’s Degree’s Excellence awards. The last three Workshops have taken place in the venue of the Fundación de las Cajas de Ahorros (FUNCAS) in Madrid, but other years it has been organised in Bilbao, Toledo or Valencia.
Why are these Workshops important?
Businesses flock to our Workshops not only to promote their activities, but also to overtake any competitors when enlisting financial talent. Graduates from the Master’s Degree in Banking and Quantitative Finance are highly qualified professionals, prepared to serve immediately at the level that financial firms demand. That’s why demand for them is high.
In the Workshop that took place at the end of the 2014-2015 academic year, 5 graduates were hired the same days the conferences were held (in other words, 25% of those who presented their research). After three weeks, 13 of our graduates had already been employed to a job related to the training received in the Master’s Degree.
Additionally, among the professors and researchers invited to comment our students’ thesis are many former graduates from the Master’s Degree in Banking and Quantitative Finance – or from the previous Doctoral programme sharing the same name – that are currently working for some of the leading firms in the financial sector. Each commentator is selected meticulously: e.g., the thesis named «Volatility Spillovers among Alternative Energy, Oil and Technology Global Markets» from last year’s Workshop was reviewed by an analyst from Repsol. Other participants have been experts from the Free University of Brussels (ULB), the European Central Bank (ECB), the Bank of Spain, or the University of Manchester.
Were you a student of the Master’s Degree in Banking and Quantitative Finance, or from the previous Doctoral programme in Quantitative Finance? Tell us about your own personal experience in the Qfb Master’s Workshop on our Facebook profile, or write to us at bfc@uv.es.
