Finance Club - Visit to the Federal Reserve in Minneapolis

When I first arrived on campus I was overwhelmed by the never-ending offer of clubs and organizations that was presented during the involvement fair I have been writing about in one of my previous blogs. I wanted to try something new and I planned to get involved in different clubs and organizations that not only are fun but even support my studies.

During my second semester at UWRF I will have to take a Financial Management class and since I didn´t have any Finance classes during my Master´s degree in Germany it has been awhile for me. To get prepared for this class I decided to become part of the Finance Club at UWRF. It is a club that is run by students and we are a small group of people that are interested in financial topics. The club is supported by a finance professor who is always willing to order some pizza or to drive us to special events such as our visit to the Federal Reserve of the Ninth District in Minneapolis. The club meets once per month, but we do have some additional events. Additional events may be some kind of voluntary work such as preparing instant food packages for third world countries or guest speakers coming in to speak about various financial topics. This week for example we did have a guest speaker who talked about small-cap investing for about one hour. The talk was very hands-on oriented as the speaker reported about his real-life experiences as a financial analyst and provided some useful tips for those who are interested in entering this particular field. His presentation as well as his experiences, mistakes made, and lessons learned were really informative and it was a nice evening event to attend and to get involved. My first event outside UWRF with the Finance Club was our visit to the Federal Reserve in Minneapolis. We booked a one-hour tour but unfortunately, I wasn´t allowed to take any pictures inside the building as everything is top secret ;) Getting to know the history of the FED and the management procedures they use was really interesting and again useful for those who plan to enter this industry. I am already looking forward to the next Finance Club event.

Besides this club I recently joined the Professional Sales Club of UWRF. Since I just joined them last week I don´t know what it is going to be like and I didn´t go on any trips with them yet but I will probably be able to report about some events in this blog as well in the future.

I think an involvement in those clubs is a great chance to make new friends and to dig a little deeper in interesting topics.

In addition to those events I returned to the Afton Alps to do some hiking. Winter hikes at the St. Croix river are absolutely stunning. Cold… but stunning!  A great place to relax while hiking.

To be continued!