Inside Scholars of Finance: Preparing Future Finance Leaders with Integrity

How Scholars of Finance combines rigorous career preparation with an emphasis on ethics and leadership.

While in college, it is important to get involved and explore your career interests outside the classroom. Although Colgate does not offer a vast amount of business or finance classes, you can bridge the gap by joining the various clubs and organizations that Colgate offers, such as the Scholar of Finance Chapter.

Scholars of Finance (SOF) is a nationally recognized organization that promotes developing ethical leaders in finance and has partnerships with some of the largest investment banks and financial firms. Associate VP of Finance, sophomore Thalia Karajannis ‘28, explained that Scholars of Finance was able to break some of the stigmas surrounding the financial industry for her. 

“Finance is not just about being selfish and making money,” Karajannis said. “It can actually be used for good; everything in the world that needs to get done in areas like medicine, technology, and governmental policy needs some sort of financial planning and backing. I learned that you can find a job in the finance world that aligns with your values and still be successful.” 

Her testament represents the mindset that the club aims to instill in its members. In order to join, potential new members must be interviewed by current members on the executive board. Once they have been accepted, the first semester is spent completing a Leadership Development Program (LDP) where trainees engage in conversations about the ethics behind finance, and learn to lead with integrity and purpose. The LDP also provides multiple workshops to teach members about the various industries and areas within finance, so that students can begin a career. Upon completion of this program, members are given access to an online platform that connects them with mentors.

For sophomore members, the chapter requires students to participate in a Recruitment Bootcamp where participants meet once a week to work on a stock pitch project. It also supplies students with resources to prepare them for the banking recruiting cycle by assigning readings, videos, and practice problems that are technical and behaviorally related. These allow for a better understanding of interview questions, as well as building the technical skills and background necessary. Similarly, SOF members are granted access to a myriad of online resources to build their knowledge base. Most notably, Training the Street is an online module that many of the biggest banks, such as Barclays, use to hone new analysts' technical skills. This access is privileged and allows students to have a self-paced but structured form of educating themselves and learning the very basics of technical expectations. 

Concurrently, the club hosts multiple speaker series and events for all members with current figures in finance and grants listeners the opportunity to learn about their careers, seek advice, and network. SOF provides Colgate students an opportunity to develop technical knowledge, an ethical foundation, and a value alignment that is needed to be successful in the financial world. This is not a passive club; members have to work to maintain their membership, just like how they would with a real-world job. By engaging with mentors, workshops, projects, and speaker series, members obtain clarity about their career paths while learning to lead with integrity.