USF Sarasota-Manatee's pioneering Bloomberg Lab, which has given finance students an invaluable edge as they prepare to enter the workforce, received a major makeover this summer, complete with 12 new Bloomberg terminals, a new stock ticker and other enhancements.
In the Bloomberg Lab, as well as an identical lab that opened on the Tampa campus this fall, faculty members incorporate myriad financial and other data available via the Bloomberg Terminals into courses on finance and investing.
Among other uses, the machines are helping students prepare for investment competitions against classmates and counterparts at other universities that measure their ability to analyze financial conditions and provide investment advice — training that prepares them for careers on Wall Street and elsewhere in the financial services industry. Many have been able to use the lab at USF Sarasota-Manatee since it opened in March 2017 to earn a Bloomberg certification that helps them stand out against other job candidates.
“We show them how to do stock analysis and how to form a portfolio, skills they will need if they choose finance as a career,” said Assistant Professor Vikas Soni, who oversees the Bloomberg Lab and the investment competitions, as well as teaches courses on the Principles of Finance and the Principles of Investments.
The Bloomberg Lab has been the centerpiece of the annual “Wall Street Trading with Bloomberg Day,” when USF Sarasota-Manatee brings local high school students to campus to learn more about how USF can help prepare them for careers in finance. During the event, faculty have demonstrated the power of the Bloomberg Terminals and the edge they give users.
“USF Sarasota-Manatee has been at the vanguard of this in providing products, equipment and a learning platform for our students,” said Gary Patterson, the director of the Kate Tiedemann School of Finance and Business and the USF St. Petersburg campus dean for the Muma College of Business.
Patterson and Joni Jones, the Sarasota-Manatee campus dean for the Muma College of Business, said opening a lab in Tampa would not have been possible without the success of the existing lab at Sarasota-Manatee.
“We are at a point where the Bloomberg Lab facilities are ready to explode as far as competitions, outreach to community and the combined efforts of our campuses,” Jones said. “That will make our students stand out from other students who are graduating with finance degrees.”
Having two Bloomberg Labs at USF “will create a synergy,” she added.
The overhaul at Sarasota-Manatee was funded by the original gift from David Kotok and Cumberland Advisers that was used to create the lab.
“To be a small campus and have such a resource for our finance students and our finance faculty, thanks to the support of our donors and supporters, is groundbreaking,” Jones said.