Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/62198
TECHFOCUS STUDENTS LEARN TO INVEST MONEY AND TRACK STOCKS AT SIMULATED TRADING FLOORS ON B-SCHOOL CAMPUSES. BUT THEY AREN'T NECESSARILY GOING ON TO CAREERS IN FINANCE—A TRADING FLOOR CAN BE USED TO SUPPORT ALMOST ANY BUSINESS SCHOOL DISCIPLINE. by Sharon Shinn The bell rings, the market opens—and business school students begin their trading day. At a small but growing number of universities, such a scenario is becoming more common, as b-schools add simulat- ed trading floors to their high-tech offerings. The costs are steep for building these windows into the real world, but administrators say the benefits can be enormous. Students come away with an array of analytical and computational skills; the business community often finds ways to take advantage of the facility; and alumni and top donors are impressed by the school's cut- ting-edge technology. Yet it's not a simple task to convince faculty to integrate trading room simulations into their courses, and before building such an expensive facility, schools must know who will use a trad- ing center—and how. "Will your trading floor be a publicity gimmick? A high-tech lab? A tourist stop? A library? Trade SECRETS It can be all of those, but it should be a way to bring students to the classroom, a platform that delivers education in an exciting manner," says John Siam, director of the Allen H. Gould Trading Floor and assistant professor of accounting in financial management services at McMaster University's Michael G. DeGroote School of Business, Hamilton, Ontario. "If you're creating a lab that builds expertise for forecasting, you don't have to have real-time data. If you're training people to be brokers and traders, you do. Understand your goals first, or you could spend a lot of money and end up with something that doesn't suit your purpose." "The easiest thing in the world is to make a financial center look flashy, so that when you're bringing through alumni or potential donors or corporate sponsors, you can have a big plasma 22 BizEd JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2003