Robert Reisert, accounting teacher at Coral Gables High School, has many students who want to be stock brokers, investment bankers, fund managers or other financial industry professionals, Reisert wanted to enhance the curriculum by bringing his students for training on the Bloomberg terminals after he participated in the Academy of Finance I Am C2 College and Career Ready Conference hosted by FIU and the National Academy Foundation. Reisert told them about a program at the State Farm Financial Literacy Lab, part of the College of Business at Florida International University (FIU), whereby they could become certified to use the Bloomberg Terminal, a widely popular research database that professionals use.
It wasn’t surprising that when Reisert asked if his high school students would be interested, many of his Accounting II students answered with an enthusiastic yes.
“The Bloomberg Terminal is the Facebook of Wall Street, always showing what’s going on,” said Rene Maurice, a student assistant at the finance lab.
This spring, after attending seven sessions on campus at the Literacy Lab, twelve of Reisert’s students finished a series of five tests to receive their Bloomberg Essentials Certification.
“I read Bloomberg in my spare time and I love to interact in depth with data,” said Yasser Lopez, a senior at Coral Gables who is planning on attending FIU. “The course was a great introduction to the world of finance.”
The Bloomberg training course is usually a series of video modules, but FIU student assistants at the lab taught the software themselves.
“This is the first time we have taught Bloomberg this way,” said student assistant David Gomez. “The Coral Gables students were very motivated, very involved and asked questions.”
Students are now savvy with the “Facebook of Wall Street.”
Bloomberg is a major global provider of 24-hour financial news and information. The Bloomberg Terminal, an integrated platform that streams together price data, financials, news, trading data and much more, is used by more than 250,000 customers worldwide to analyze real-time financial market data and place trades on the electronic trading platform. The system also provides news, price quotes, and messaging.
“These students are a big step ahead by being certified on this platform now,” Maurice said.
“The students and I were very impressed with FIU’s College of Business,” said Reisert. “I think you’ll see some of these students here for their degree work.” He added, “I am grateful to Miami-Dade County Public Schools Career and Technical Education Department and Principal Adolfo Costa for letting us take advantage of this opportunity. Most of all, I’m very proud of the students.”
