Dear IM Club Members,
Please see below opportunity with Professor Rao and her class Finance Research Practicum.~30 projects are offered from mutual funds and hedge funds. Please feel free to reach out to Professor Rao directly if you have any questions.Subject: RE: Introduction of Professor Gita Rao and Finance Research Practicum
I want to tell you a little about the course I am teaching – the Finance Research Practicum. It runs full time during IAP and then meets twice a week during SH1. Below are some points that I’d like to highlight.
* The Practicum is NOT a course exclusively for MFins. We typically have 4-6 MBA students, and other students from across campus – grad students in engineering, health sciences, economics etc. You can speak to Valerio Riavez about his experience last year.
* The course offers a very different learning experience vs. the Proseminar. The teams are 2-3 students max, and there is close interaction with the sponsor for several months, starting in December. It’s a terrific opportunity to build a relationship with industry experts, while learning from them.
* We have sourced 30+ projects, from a wide variety of sponsors. The sponsors include investment firms, hedge funds, VC and PE firms, and two healthcare-related companies. Specifically, the VC firms are Fairhaven Capital (here in Kendall Square) hosting a project on the augmented reality space, Red Sea Ventures (NYC) and Boston Scientific’s VC fund in San Francisco. We have a PE firm (LFM capital) that’s going to host students down in Nashville, and another PE fund of funds here in Boston. Boston Scientific is hosting an M&A project. We also have two impact investing/SRI projects, one in London and one in San Francisco.
* The projects range from quant to fundamental. The VC projects will draw on valuation skills, while Leerink Swann is a pure fundamental research project in the healthcare space, working with two senior analysts at the firm.
* Some of the sponsors are looking to hire from the Practicum. This would be either for summer internships or for full-time jobs.
Hope this helps. Please let me know if you’d like to discuss further. The class meetings to discuss projects will be held on 2 days – Nov 5 and Nov 9, from 6-7:30 in E62-276. You can attend one of the sessions to learn more about the course and the projects.
Best regards,
Gita