Financial Services Fellowship
Application Deadline: October 31st, 2023, 12pm/noon (pst)
The Financial Services Fellowship (FSF) is a prestigious award that gives a cohort of students who are interested, curious and inquisitive about financial services a hands-on and immerse experience. This fellowship program takes place in New York City during spring break of 2024. The FSF seeks applicants who are committed to the intensive nature of the awards professional development curriculum. Sophomores will not only develop skills related to professionalism, networking, an capital markets, but will also meet with leaders representing a wide range of roles in their industry, including journalists, sales and trading analysts, investment professionals, hedge fund managers, financial analysts, recruiters, Reed alumni, business leaders, and more. The intention of this fellowship is to offer sophomores a unique and in-depth opportunity to understand the inner-workings of the financial services industry, and through this insight make informed decisions about how this industry may or may not connect to their future professional and academic pursuits.
The Financial Services Fellowship funds:
- Cost of flight and other travel expenses from Portland to New York
- Business dinners and site visits
- Cost of lodging
- A limited stipend to purchase professional ware
The daily setting of the fellowship is such that students will travel predominately by foot along NYC’s Wall Street and other locations in Manhattan. For this reason, applicants are encouraged to consider if the design of this award meets their needs and will be a productive experience for them. The intentional rigidity and rigor of this program limits most accommodation that students’ may typically receive while on-campus. If you have any questions, and would like to discuss whether the design of this trip is a good fit for your needs, please reach out to CLBR directly via clbrfellowships@reed.edu.
Benefits to Students:
- All applicants will receive a guaranteed first-round interview with either a Reed Trustee or member of Reed’s Investment Committee
- Networking opportunities with influential alumni and financial-services leaders
- Business dinners with alumni and trustees of the College
- Opportunities to shadow professionals in their workplace
- Recruitment presentations about firms’ hiring processes for future internship and full-time job opportunities
- Visits to key sites, such as the New York Stock Exchange’s trading floor, New York Federal Reserve
- One-one-one meetings with financial services professionals
Who should apply?
Only sophomores in good academic standing are eligible for this fellowship.
- Applicants must remain in good academic standing at time of application and through the duration of the fellowship.
- This fellowship has no preferences for an applicant's major
- Paideia, January 16th - 19th: "Understanding Capital Markets" course and participation in the Financial Services Fellowship Orientation
- Tentatively, February 7th: Tentatively hold for a mandatory evening event with Reed's Board of Trustees, details to follow.
- Spring Break, March 10th - 15th: Travel to and from New York
The Center for Life Beyond Reed is available to help you! Please reach out to any of our Career Advisor via Handshake for an appointment.
Questions? clbrfellowships@reed.edu
To Apply
- Application window: October 14th - October 31st, 2023, 12pm/noon (pst)
To apply for the Reed Financial Services Fellowship, two items are required for submission:
- A one page resume
- A one page cover letter answering the following questions in a paragraph each:
Required cover letter question:
- What research or prior knowledge do you have of New York's Wall Street, capital marketing and/or financial services?
- What do you hope to gain or learn from this experience?
Additionally, choose ONE of the below questions to answer in your cover letter:
- What are you curious about/interested in learning about financial markets, investing, financial literacy, currency, etc.?
- What is your overall GPA, and does it reflect your academic success accurately?
- What courses have you taken where you have enhanced your analytical skills?
Review & Notification
All qualified applicants will be offered a first round interview, to be tentatively scheduled between November 6th - 28th. Finalist will be notified of their selection status by December 1st, 2023.
Responsibilities
Fellows will engage in a variety of pre-trip activities during spring semester, including a required Paideia course on understanding capital markets.
Fellows will be required to agree to, sign and follow Reed College's Institutional Risk Management Policies and the Center for Life Beyond Reed's Student Conduct for Off-Campus Events Policy.
Insight from FSF Alumni
Take-aways from Reedies that participated in the Financial Services Fellowship:
"I encourage all eligible students to apply to the Financial Services Fellowship next year, so they can explore the industry firsthand and form their own opinions. During the Fellowship, you will learn an incredible amount in an incredibly short period of time, and meet some of the most interesting and diverse financial leaders."
- Sanjeev Verma '15, Philosophy
Sarah Brauner '16, Economics/Mathematics shares her experience of the Financial Services Fellowship on the Works and Days blog; read and learn why she urges Reedies to "partake in this Reed-sponsored journey to what might not actually be the 'dark side'."
"In all, taking part in the Reed Financial Service trip was one of my best professional decisions. I can’t say that I conclusively answered all the questions I set out with, but I gained enough knowledge to start to think of the next step in my many steps towards a career path. And the ability to make this realization is an opportunity any Reedie who is even slightly nursing the idea of a career in finance should not miss out on."
- Emmanuel Enemchukwu '16, Economics
Candidates must be currently enrolled at Reed with sophomore standing. Those applications that demonstrate strong analytical skills will be favored, although mathematics and quantitative courses are not required; in fact, one of the objectives of the program is to expose students from all disciplines to the wide variety of roles in the financial services industry.