Finance Students Find Duke Ties in London
30 June 2015 3:06PM
The 15 undergraduate students in this summer’s Duke in London Finance program will supplement textbooks with The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal and do much of their learning in the conference rooms, offices, and trading floors of multinational financial institutions. In the process, they will learn the ins and outs of the financial markets and the quantitative fundamentals of finance, all under the guidance of two of the biggest Duke fans around.
The semester begins with three weeks of instruction from John Caccavale, a Duke professor, parent, and alumnus with 30 years of Wall Street experience and an endearing sense of pride for his alma mater. “I’m a sucker for Duke t-shirts, hoodies, hats, wristbands …” he said. “I have everything. My wife told me I should change my name to Duke.”
Students spend the next three weeks under the guidance of Emma Rasiel, a Fuqua alumna who grew up in London, where she later worked as an executive director for the London office of Goldman Sachs. Her motto: “Once you’re at Duke, you’re always at Duke.”
Together, Caccavale and Rasiel lead students through a summer of classroom instruction, site visits, and meetings with financial professionals, many of them Duke parents and alumni.
“We try to diversify the definition of finance for our students,” Caccavale said, noting the program has covered a range of financial topics, including the global sales of record companies. “We want these kids to realize there are tons of cool jobs out there in finance.
He also asks his students to keep journals documenting global current events; oil prices, the Scotland vote and Bitcoin have all been topics of discussion in his finance classes.
London provides the perfect setting for students to get out of the classroom and visit the financial institutions they read about in the newspapers. This summer Rasiel will take students to the Bank of England, a London icon dating back to the 1600s. Sometimes referred to as The Old Lady of Threadneedle Street, the bank has been a hub of economic and monetary policy in England for generations, employing some of the UK’s highest-ranking officials.
Pratt School of Engineering alumnus Kevin Edwards ’01 will also give students a tour of his office — the Morgan Stanley trading floor. “You can walk into a trading floor and feel this buzz,” Rasiel said, describing an open room with hundreds of flashing screens, characterized by the noise and bustle of daily life in the financial markets.
Students will meet Jonathan Rosen ’92, a partner at TDR Capital, at his offices — which Rasiel describes as “elegantly furnished, with wonderful views over London” — and visit the Barclays trading floor, among other visits.
Carolyn Covalt, program coordinator at Duke’s Global Education Office, said the student-alumni interaction is a highlight of the program, offering students the opportunity to see their academic studies at work in a non-academic setting.
“They’re studying a specific trend, and then they go out and see someone who is working in that trend and using that theory in a practical sense,” she said. “What more can you ask for?”
Rasiel hopes the students will build lasting personal relationships with the alumni they meet, and that their time in London will open them up to new opportunities. “They may serendipitously find a mentor [in a Duke alumnus],” she said. “Being in London and meeting alumni there expands students’ horizons; it shows them just how global the Duke community is.”
This article was originally published on the Duke Global website.
Learn more about the Duke Financial Economics Center.