Students welcome all to join brand new Risk and Finance Society
Risk Management students have brought their peers together in a brand new Risk and Finance Society, whilst also giving them a chance to engage with employers.
For those interested in all things finance and risk, the society has been created to allow students to connect with one another – with many of them getting to meet for the first time due to the pandemic.
As well as this, members get the opportunity to engage with employers through industry talks; working with companies like Morgan Stanley, Barclays and more.
The society, which launched at the start of October, is open to all students and society members want to encourage all of those interested in the subject to join.
Society President Natalia Timoshkina, Vice-President John Mulhern and Events Coordinator Caitlin Hastie are delighted to help kick start the society and feel excited for what’s to come:
Tell us a bit about the society – how did it start in the first place?
John: “Natalia and I are both in our final year and we were talking about how great it would be to do something to try and encourage a community with students from the course. Natalia put forward the idea to start a Risk and Finance Society, which initially I didn’t have a great deal of knowledge about because I came into the programme as a direct entrant from a business course. We decided to embark on this new challenge to start the society; as if we weren’t busy enough with our dissertation!
We knew it would be warmly welcomed by the students from the course because it would give them that chance to connect with each other outside of their studies. It’s also a chance for students to engage with industry related opportunities and meet employers from the sector.”
Natalia: “We felt it was important to have more face-to-face meetings and social events because our year in particular did a lot of the course online. Not a lot of people actually know each other because of that and everyone tended to stay in smaller groups. Employer events were also online and students perhaps weren’t able to get as much from it as they would have liked. Our main goal was to overcome that issue.”
Caitlin: “I’m in first year and this has been the first year that I’ve been able to experience campus life, Freshers, etc. Previously, I went to college and all of that was online, so to come in and get that proper university experience is brilliant! To find out that there was a Risk and Finance Society was great for me, especially since it was a society related to my subject.”
What sort of events have you been able to do so far?:
Caitlin: “We’re hoping to host a mixture of events; which includes social and industry focused events. Recently, we had the company Morgan Stanley do an employer talk at one of our events and it got a lot of people talking about applying for jobs there, which was good.
We also organized a pub crawl and everyone seemed to have a great time. People were even saying things like, ‘That was so much fun, it was great to meet everyone’, which was really nice to hear. For many of the 4th year students, it was their first chance to attend a student social event and it’s really encouraged us to do events like that more often.
We’re also looking to contact groups like the Scottish Fire & Rescue Service and Police Scotland so they can talk about their work and how the risk elements ties in with what they do. We also have plans to go out and speak to secondary school pupils to raise awareness about Risk Management as a subject because not many will realise it’s a career option. For example, I had no idea about Risk Management until 9 months ago and I thought ‘This is me on paper’ – I knew it was the subject for me.”
For those who don’t know, what does Risk Management entail?
Caitlin: “Risk Management is all about minimising risk. The best example I can use to describe Risk Management is COVID-19. You can terminate it, transfer it , mitigate it or you can tolerate it – all of these things can be done with risk. The things we ask ourselves are questions like “is it a big enough risk that we can resolve it?” or “can we just tolerate it?”. With Covid, Universities had to analyse risks to make sure they could keep their students safe.
One of the biggest risks we are facing at the moment is climate change. We’re hoping to create an event and work alongside green-minded people. The idea of collaborating with different subjects and societies across the university would be great and it’s something we would really like to do.
When talking about risk – it’s everywhere. It’s something we all experience, no matter what industry we are in.”
You all have different roles within the society; tell us a bit about what you do?
Natalia: “As Society President, I help oversee the organisation of the events we run. If someone in the society has an idea, I’ll help them implement it. I also like to meet with the employers that we invite in to do talks alongside John, the Vice-President. I also run the society’s Facebook page, while John and Caitlin run the Instagram page.”
John: “Whilst we have our set roles at the moment, the society is only in it’s early stages so everyone is stepping in and doing their bit for whatever is needed. It’s very much a team effort, but as the society progresses we will get the chance to identify what our skills are best suited for and play to our strengths.”
Natalia: “It’s our first year trying something like this, so we’re kind of learning as we go. At one point, we’re hoping to create a handbook which could be passed down to the next team of students who want to be involved in the future.”
John: It’s a really nice feeling knowing that we have created something that could potentially be a legacy going forward. This is the first time I’ve been involved in something like this, but already I feel like I have learned so much. Everyone has something to learn from someone, and the experience has really taught me how to be a team player.
There’s a great sense of pride knowing that we’ve created this space for future students. Even once I’ve graduated, it will be nice to check in and see how everyone is getting on.”
Caitlin: “There was a moment during one of our events where I got to sit back and see everyone laughing and having a good time. It was such a nice feeling knowing that we’ve been able to create something to allow students to connect with each other, when before this wasn’t possible.”
You can keep up to date with the Finance and Risk Society by checking out their Facebook and Instagram pages
By Rachael McAlonan
Got a SCEBE or GSBS story? Email me at Rachael.McAlonan@gcu.ac.uk or connect with me on social media here