Finance students in the past have participated in national student competitions. They are a great opportunity to practice and further your knowledge and skills you learned in the finance program at PSU. Because not all of you are finance major, grading will be generous as long as you follow the instructions (e.g., number counts for answers). In addition, it’s not a technical assignment. It’s an opportunity to look back and evaluate what you have learned, how they can be useful, and what else you should learn. Remember you chose finance as your major because you like something about finance. Follow your passion and keep learning what excites you, and you will have a bright future ahead of you. This is the last assignment of this course. Thank you for working hard in this course for the past 7 weeks.
Hint: You may Google search something like “student competitions in finance”.
I would consider competing in the “The CFO Global”, however this is a high level competition stage, so it would require lots of practice.
This event open entry, anyone can apply as an undergraduate collegiate student, however few will be selected.
The criteria of the competition is Section 1: About the competitions Section 2: Participant, team eligibility and registration Section 3: Communication Section 4: Competition format & stages Section 5: Penalties and non-compliance Section 6: Intellectual property Section 7: Consent and release Section 8: Disclaimers Section 9: Official prize, prize transfer or substitution Section 10: Applicable laws and jurisdiction Section 11: Adjudication and outcomes
Registrations on The CFO Portal (online) 1 Nov 2020 31 Mar 2021 150 days Release of Pre-seen Information/Case Study Background (in The CFO Portal) 1 Dec 2020 28 Feb 2021 90 days STAGE 1 : Preliminaries (at your University/School/Country) 1 Nov 2020 14 Jul 2021 - 1.1 Release of case scenarios, analysis & submission of reports & team profiles. 1 Nov 2020 30 Apr 2021 60 Days 1.1b Teams invited to submit videos. 1 May 2021 31 May 2021 30 Days 1.2 Panel evaluations. 1 Jun 2021 12 Jun 2021 11 Days 1.2b Top 15 announced. 13 Jun 2021 13 Jun 2021 1 Day 1.3 Higher adjudication & Top 6 announcements (possible national finals) 13 Jun 2021 14 July 2021 30 Days STAGE 2: The People’s Choice (Public Votes -TV & Online) 15 July 2021 16 Sep 2021 65 Days STAGE 3: Semi-Finals (Presentations at Johannesburg Stock Exchange - South Africa - Fully Paid Trip) 12 Oct 2021 12 Oct 2021 1 Day STAGE 4: The Finals (Extended Case Study and Presentations at the Johannesburg Stock Exchange) 13 Oct 2021 13 Oct 2021 1 Day AWARDS CEREMONY 14 Oct 2021 14 Oct 2021 1 Day
This competition in particular caught my eye because “It challenges university students around the world to prove they can compete at the highest level: by solving a set of complex and integrated finance, operational, strategic and ethical problems that beset a real-world global business in the emerging markets”
The project is not publicly posted or listed in any way whatsoever. It would be hard to project exactly what my submission could be, however it would be the be to solve finance, operation, strategic and ethic problems to the best of my ability. The reason they do not propose assessing particular business before the competition is to create a level of consistency on difficulty and time line. My expectations would be that they propose problems from numerous different companies and request them to be solved to the best of the teams abilities. They then judge based on how these problems either have been proposed to be solved or have been solved by professionals in these fields.
Financial modeling at Plymouth state university, I believe would be a tremendous help in this kind of situation for a competition. Everything I have learned with R studio is a significant asset. The ability to load, sort, manipulate and analyze data in hundreds or even thousands of different ways is an enormous upper hand to anyone that is not familiar with the R studio program. I think Module 6, Portfolio analysis was the most helpful section as it ties everything we have learned in this course together, and shows us how to apply and integrate all these skills at the same time, to get the best results.
The only other finance course I have taken at Plymouth State University was Financial Accounting and Financial Management. These courses were a very brief overview of accounting and management in a business, however was a tremendous help to developing an understanding of the finance world. Getting a foot in the door with these two courses have taught me enough to get myself into upper leveling finance courses that will enhance my skills in the most beneficial ways. Financial Management was a very impactful course as it went deep into stock and company performance and analysis. Financial modeling excelled my skills and these categories by developing my skills in R Studio.
Hint: The author of the blog writes articles on financial analysis using R. https://rviews.rstudio.com/categories/reproducible-finance-with-r/
“IPO Exploration’s” Part 1, 2, and Portfolio’s and Benchmark caught my as these are the beginning stages of a company becoming available to public. The initial public offering of many companies are often announced in the even a company is in need of money to continue rapid expansion. This allows companies to borrow money from investors. I think that these articles impeticular are beneficial as they address what challenges companies may encounter by becoming public, and how one can manipulate and analyze the data in R Studio. It instructs in further detail how to chart data from Open, Close, High, and Low stock prices and total volume. It is a valuable article and tool to take into consideration when attempting to achieve a Finance Competition.
My career at Plymouth State University has offered my many opportunities and learning paths. I have discovered in many of my courses in my major, skills that I would not have been able to access or learn so easily on my own. I always loved the offerings of Plymouth State University for classes and clubs however, I feel it was not quite enough to differentiate myself from students here or even at other schools in an open job market. I think if there were more club or internship opportunities at Plymouth State University, it would allow students to diversify themselves deeper into the realm of business in which their interests guide them.