title: “Term Paper” author: “Colton Petrosino” output: html_document: toc: true —

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.

Q1 What is the title of the finance student competition you may consider competing? Hint: You may Google search something like “student competitions in finance”. National Investment Banking Competition

Q2 Describe the eligibility requirements, if any (e.g., undergraduate college student). Competition is open to both undergraduate and graduate students

Q3 What are the competition criteria? Researching and analyzing financial data Running scenarios in financial models Evaluating structural alternatives against client parameters Creating pitch books Presenting to senior management

Q4 What is the deadline for the submission? Application dead lines is in November for it and the competition it self is all due in the one day of competition.

Q5 Why are you interested in this competition? This competition would help me gain skills I need for the real world in finance. This competition would help with networking. I would also be able to meet people from many different university and from all around the country and make connections. This can lead to jobs in the future or having an easier time making deals with business since I know the people working in it. It also will have people in the business world watching it so it can lead to job offers if you do well.

Q6 What would be a possible project you may turn in for the competition? Describe it in at least 100 words. The group would have to present financial analysis on the required company. The group would do finical research on the given company and start organizing the data. They would then put all the data into slides to present to a live business world professionals. Groups show accounting, finical records and then would compare them to the industry average. The group would show the finical reports and suggest what they would to in order to improve the company. This would be shown on the power point slides and be presented in great detail to the audience. This project presentation can then lead to business professionals wanting to hire you if you do it well.

Q7 List things that you learned in financial modeling course that could be helpful for your project in Q6. Describe it in at least 100 words. I have learned so much from this finical modeling class. I was able to learn more about coding and how it is an important skill to have that will make me more variable in the business world. I learned how to look up information that I need when I do not know something. This is a very important skill to have because everything you need is on the internet. This would save time from having to ask coworkers or management racially if it is skill the accepted you to already have. I have gotten a better understanding of certain companies such as Microsoft, Amazon, and Netflix because we have worked with them so much. I gained knowledge to these companies and what makes them successful. i have also learned how to read finical information about a company and able to interpret what it means and whether it good or bad. All of this would greatly help interpret the financial information given to me when competing in the competition.

Q8 List things that you learned in other finance courses at PSU that could be helpful for your project in Q6. Describe it in at least 100 words. I have learned more about stocks in my some of my other course. This would be helpful for the completion because stocks are a good indicator of a businesses heath. I have learned skills in accounting that would help me analyze the data that we get for the company provided. I would then be able to suggest improvements for the company and were they can do better to make more money. I would also be able to interpret sales data and determine which products are doing well and to make more of and which products to get rid of that do not make enough money.

Q9 Check the finance blog below and see if you see any post that may be helpful for your project in Q6. Discuss how it can be helpful in at least 100 words. Hint: The author of the blog writes articles on financial analysis using R. https://rviews.rstudio.com/categories/reproducible-finance-with-r/ One of the post in the finical blog is about investing. This could be helpful to the competition project in many ways. It would help us compare our company with others by following the same code. We would out our company in and compare it to other companies in the same field. This would allow us to be able to see where the company needs improvement but it would also show us what our company doe s better than others in. Having out stocks be shown would allow us to see what types of stocks people invest in and depending on the stocks determine how the people want the company to use the money they gave the company.

Q10 List things that you think could be helpful but not taught/offered at PSU finance courses. Discuss how it can be helpful in at least 100 words. Things not taught in PSU financial class that would be helpful for the competition would be pressing skills. Sure we may know all of the data and how to read it and analyze it. However, this all does not matter if we can not present it in a organized way. Being able to communicate what we analyze is very important because without and explanation, it would just look like a bunch of numbers and none sense to the business. Being able to answer questions on the spot would also be a good skill to have. Sure you may know all the information but when the time comes, you do not want to freeze and say the wrong information because you are nervous.