Activities Spotlight: Smart Woman Securities and Women in Business
One of the most important parts of college, melding together academics and student life, is the clubs you join during your time there. Whether it be a club sport (from running to badminton to fencing to table tennis), a cultural affinity club (from ASA to SALSA to SPIRIT), a common interest club (from parkour to investigative journalism to community service), or an industry-oriented club, CMU’s roster of student organizations is bound to have a club for you.
When it comes to business-oriented clubs, of course, Tepper has many. Especially as an incoming freshman with little prior real world experience with finance and investing, Tepper’s Tartan Student fund, Finance Group, Business Technology Club, and Quant Club all offered me opportunities to learn about finance and put what i learned into practice firsthand.
I found that the clubs to which I was drawn the most, however, were the female-oriented business clubs, aimed to educate and empower women in a largely male-dominated industry. While you may have heard of CMU’s Society of Women Engineers or Women@SCS, seemingly natural products of the STEM fields’ widely acknowledged gender disparity, perhaps lesser known are the two business-oriented clubs that give women a safe space to develop and hone in on their interests at Tepper: Smart Woman Securities and Women In Business.
Smart Woman Securities
Smart Woman Securities is a club that educates its members on the basics of finance and lets them put this knowledge into practice by creating and presenting their own stock pitch recommendations. In the fall, new members undergo a 10-part lecture series including guest speakers that range from university professors to graduate students to those that currently work the industry. Using what she learns, each member researches her own stock to pitch, and does so at the first general body meeting of the spring semester. Members, fully initiated into the national chapter, then have the chance to join the Research Board as a research analyst or portfolio manager, working on a team with other members to create and pitch stock recommendations as part of the organization’s nationwide competition between chapters.
Women In Business
As opposed to Smart Woman Securities, which focuses specifically on helping women gain confidence and experience to enter the finance industry one day, Women In Business has a broader-based mission: to help women develop the skills and confidence they need to enter the business world in general. From networking tips to resume reviews and inspiring guest speakers, Women In Business’ events are open to all female undergraduate students interested in getting help in the job and internship-searching process.
Now, while I realize these clubs are not the best fit for everyone, as is the case with nearly every activity or decision in life, I strongly encourage every young CMU woman interested in business give one or both of them a try. You never know what amazing people and opportunities you could meet or find by doing so.
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