Pankaj Garg
Batch: 2007-08
1st Placement: ABN AMRO
Why did you come to BIFM?
I was working in investment finance. I figured out that I wanted to stay in finance – maybe wanted to look at it from a slightly different perspective. I spoke to a few of my colleagues and that one thing which came up in all of those conversations was that the first institute they go to when they are looking to get recruited is BIFM, because of its reputation and the preparedness of the students. BIFM has a techno-friendly environment encouraging global communication through Wi-Fi & an industry-friendly curriculum taught by their excellent faculty is what I liked.Taking everything into consideration, it seemed to make the most sense of what I thought I wanted to do afterwards, and BIFM’s meaningful education is a considerable financial investment. The return on such an investment is reflected in the number of satisfied and happy faces of students who have graduated from there.
What about BIFM's reputation as a financial education institute?
There is clearly some truth to that, just evidenced by the fact that BIFM is the first Institute that my boss and managers went to for recruiting students. What you need to remember, though, is that when you have 120 students you are going to have a diverse group of people in terms of backgrounds and interests. People don't realize that BIFM has one of the best placement departments in the education industry, or that you can take classes anywhere. I think finance might be perceived as core strength, but in a place so big with such a distinguished faculty, whatever you want, you can find here.
Does BIFM capitalize on those other strengths?
One thing that BIFM does very well is the way the core courses are tied into one another. The way you take Statistics in your first semester and that's used throughout your other classes. You take Managerial Economics early on and the same theories come up in your Finance class. The way that everything is tied in together wasn't something that I thought about before I got there.
What did you get out of working with your learning team?
To be honest, I was a little skeptical about the whole learning team thing. I thought, why can't we decide who we want to work with on a given project? But the thing I've taken away from it is that you aren't always going to get the chance to choose who your teammates are. I tried to go at it with an open mind, knowing that there are some things that I'm good at, some things that I'm not good at, and hopefully my weaknesses will be somebody else's strengths, and I can leverage that. At the end of the day, I can look back and say that some of the things that I wanted to improve on – like being more organized and focused and making sure that I was aware of everyone around me and actually bringing something to the table – I was able to do. In large part, that was because of the people who were on my learning team. The five people in my learning team are probably my five closest friends here.
Where do you see yourself in the future?
In the short-term, I came here with the goal or idea to excel in investment management and learn about the business. After that, I'm not sure. I guess it depends on how it goes. Eventually, I'd like to do my own thing in the finance world. One thing that I've learnt is things change. Sometimes they turn out the way you expect, sometimes they don't. You have to be able to adapt, as of now, that's what I'm thinking, but if you ask me in a year or two, it might change.
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