Swiss Finance Academy Journal - Day 2
A review of the basics was good. Today we learned (or I re-learned) about the Time value of money. It was fun learning about how to discount cash flows once again as I have mostly departed from such calculations in my recent studies due to a focus at school on analysis and ratios that deal directly with those corporate evaluations / economic conditions.
Earlier this morning we learned about the internal structure of Investment Banks and why it is so important that the Selling and Trading of stocks/investing is kept separate from the mergers/acquisitions and non-public knowledge of the firm being worked on/invested in/being bought, etc.
The pace of the class is fast. It is so for a reason as the Investment Banking world is every bit as intense and probably much MUCH more stressful. I do wish we had one more week... three weeks seems so... short. I looked at the schedule for the previous years, and I think a month is a better time format to learn, grasp, practice, and internalize the great wealth of knowledge presented in front of us. Which brings me to my next point...
This schedule is rigorous. There is no time for rest. There is no time for games. There's barely any time for fun, which doesn't really matter anyway here since one can't really go outside because of the rain. I guess that Sanjay and this school are trying to teach us what life is really like as Investment Bankers as my brain was swiss cheese last night at 11:00pm, but that's when I still had to be at peak performance and “start” the homework. I still didn't manage to finish it.
Tonight, I am going to work on the homework BEFORE going to eat. Yesterday we didn't have a choice, nor did everywhere have Internet, so we were at a disadvantage from the get go. I'll only get partial credit for the last assignment, but then again, so will everyone else. No one was on their A game totally yesterday. No one human that is. :)
