By Matti Pennington | Reporter
The Investment & Advisory Network held its first meeting of the semester on Zoom Tuesday evening. I&A is a student-led organization that helps students get placed in finance jobs by connecting with mentors.
In the spring semester, students who are interested in the I&A network will submit a resume and cover letter and conduct an interview with student liaisons.
“Investment banking has a really early time schedule, so if you want a job in investment banking you have to start thinking about it your sophomore year,” Highland Park senior Caroline Keith said. “The first semester you join we start with interviews. It is a very competitive process. We pick the top applicants who show interest, know what they want and have the dedication to this because it is a really hard profession.”
Keith joined this organization her sophomore year and since then has received a full-time job offer with Simmons Energy after college.
“The Investment and Advisory Network has solely helped me land my job,” Keith said. “Without them, I would have no idea what investment banking is, and I would have no idea what I was doing. They really help you in every way and are very supportive.”
Once the interviewing process is over, students are assigned both a senior and a junior alumni mentor who will help them learn about applying to the network.
“I help current Baylor students learn more about finance and investment banking,” Baylor alumna Allison Pennington said. “Students reach out to alumni to learn more about banking and get plugged into the recruiting process, and I can recommend Baylor students to my bank.”
Pennington graduated from Baylor in 2020 and immediately started her professional career as an energy investment banking analyst.
“Investment banks help companies buy or sell assets, raise capital in the form of debt or equity and come up with strategic ideas for the company to meet its goals,” Pennington said. “The job of an analyst is to prepare materials for meetings, presentations or even public filings.”
Last week, a group of investors on Reddit went head-to-head with Wall Street by inflating the share price of GameStop. Hedge funds lost billions of dollars while Reddit investors had a huge gain.
“GameStop has been all over the news and my finance knowledge has helped me understand it,” Keith said. “I have had probably 10 people reach out to me being like, ‘Hey can you please explain GameStop?’ Baylor finance classes will obviously teach you what you need to know about hedge funds and shorting stocks, but I learned everything a year in advance because of I&A.”
This organization helps students learn materials that they have not yet covered in their business classes to impress companies in their interviews.
Investment & Advisory mission is “to effectively promote the competitiveness and placement of Baylor students in advisory and related industries including investment banking, strategy consulting, equity research, wealth management, private equity and hedge funds.”
Pennington said she is glad that I&A prepared her for the “rigorous technical interviews” and even more grateful the network provided her the opportunity to “get connected to Baylor alums in investment banking.”
Editor’s note: Reporter Matti Pennington and Allison Pennington of I&A are unrelated.
