Bloomberg Terminals put student-hands on professional tools
Completed this summer, the Bloomberg Terminal room in Grawn Hall allows business students to monitor and analyze real-time market data and make trades as if they were in Wall Street.
"Instead of spending time calculating ratios, I encourage students to go to a terminal, download (the ratios) and tell me what they mean," said finance and law professor Pawan Jain. "The most important concept is to interpret them. That was missing. Bloomberg made it easy."
The idea behind installing the terminals is to connect classroom theory with practice on the trading floor. Every student in his FIN 448 class has certification with the machines– an objective and standardized measure of their competency that is essential for getting hired.
The accreditation makes CMU students more attractive to employers, Pawan said.
In his courses, around 200 students have access to the terminals. Most were certified.
Charles Crespy, dean of the College of Business, said alumni in the industry have spoken to him about how they benefitted professionally from using the terminals.
Jon Voigtman, managing director with Royal Bank of Canada in New York City and a CMU alumnus, recently visited Mount Pleasant for CMU and You Day. Voigtman said the starting salary for new hires is $85,000 and students could be making over $100,000 in their first year.
Because of this, Crespy said the goal of his college is to get all finance students Bloomberg certified.
"It's not easy to master the use of those terminals but the return is enormous because it allows you to participate in the financial sector in a way few do," Crespy said. "You need to learn how to use the terminals to be hired."
He added that the biggest challenge is making students feel less intimidated by the sophistication of the machines; he has had many students ask if they have permission to use the terminals outside of class.
The college is working on how to integrate the new technology into the curriculum, Crespy said. In this regard, CMU has a big of a head start compared to other universities.
CMU is one of just four Michigan universities that has 12 terminals and one of eight in the state to have any at all.
CMU is one of 280 schools in the nation that has Bloomberg Terminals and strives to make them accessible. At $209,800, the newly completed terminal room in Grawn Hall 117 was funded mostly by private donations.
It was one of projects aligned with CMU's 2013-2018 Strategic Plan.
Crespy said these initiatives will "help students get a leg up over a Bronco" in their future endeavors.
Terminals also reside in the Park Library, Ronan Lab and two are available on laptops for classroom use.
