Learn by doing
If the phrase "everything I know about business I learned from a textbook" describes your college experience, you didn’t attend the Gabelli School of Business. Gabelli students graduate with years of hands-on experience acquired both inside and outside the classroom — a trait that is magnetic to future employers.
Going to school in the world financial capital of New York City, Gabelli students get a ton of practical industry experience from internships, of course. But learning by doing takes place all over campus as well.
- Did you know that Gabelli offers a course that lets students manage $1 million of Fordham’s actual endowment money?
- Did you know that students import artisan goods from Africa and market them in the United States?
To see how Gabelli gives students real-world, practical experience that is as educational and professionally enriching as it is valuable on a résumé, expand the links about each of the programs below.
Student Managed Investment Fund
Want to manage a $1 million portfolio before you've even graduated college? Take this course taught by finance professor James Kelly. One of the distinguishing features of Gabelli’s Student Managed Investment Fund is that unlike some other business schools’ similar courses, which only allow students to invest in domestic assets, Fordham students get to invest in global assets, earning worldwide returns on the university endowment.
At the close of the last academic year, the fund's cumulative compound return since inception was 11.9 percent, and it outperformed the benchmark of stock, bond and commodity indices against which it is rated.
Fair Trade artisan program
Travel to Kenya to meet the artisans and producers whose merchandise you'll market in the United States as part of the Fair Trade course. Before and after their intercontinental business trip to the African villages, students in this class write marketing plans and conduct both online and brick-and-mortar sales, connecting Kenyan small businesses with consumers in New York and beyond.
Click here to see a small sample of the Fair Trade goods marketed by our students, who make decisions each semester about the overall product line. The full catalog presently ranges from Fair Trade-produced chocolate bars to soapstone carvings to Fordham gear.
Local consulting program
Each semester, Gabelli students have the chance to become pro bono business consultants to one business or organization in New York City. You might help nearby St. Barnabas Hospital figure out how to run more efficiently. Or advise a brand-new charter school on how to attract students and much-needed financial support. The entire class works as a team to develop strategies and delivers recommendations at the end of the semester in a professional-caliber business presentation to the clients themselves.
Other past clients include the United Nations Global Compact and The Hunger Project.
New York City service learning
Last year alone, Gabelli students volunteered more than 1,300 total hours at nine Bronx nonprofits as part of the service-learning program — and gained hands-on experience in the process, along with one additional academic credit. Some of them organized and ran a fundraising 5K run for Yes The Bronx, others worked on behalf of the Fordham Road Business Improvement District, and still others acted as pro bono accountants for low-income residents through the city's VITA income-tax assistance program.
The greatest part about Gabelli's service-learning program is that students get to choose the organization they help, by proposing a project that interests them to the service-learning advisor. Students build their résumés and enhance their experience while advancing the cause of a nonprofit, program or part of the community that matters most to them.
Corporate-sponsored academic competitions
Representing Fordham in a corporate-backed accounting, finance or other competition is a great way to get yourself noticed by the sponsor — whether it’s PwC, Deloitte or the New York Society of Security Analysts — while gaining hands-on experience. In these competitions, university teams from around the country face off in simulations of shockingly real business situations. Gabelli students work with fellow undergraduates, students from Fordham's graduate business school and faculty advisors to prepare case studies, and then travel as far as California and Texas to present their solutions to corporate judges.
Click here to read about the Fordham team's winning a spot in the national round of the Deloitte competition, and click here to find out why one Gabelli student credits his full-time job offer to his participation in an academic contest.
Integrated projects
Every course in Gabelli's one-of-a-kind integrated business core includes a real-world component. Freshmen in The Ground Floor get experience in writing a business plan when they conceive an idea for a brand-new company. Sophomores tackle business challenges facing actual corporations and must come up with a solution. Envision yourself as a senior, interviewing for a full-time job at Google or Coca-Cola, and mentioning that only two years earlier, you completed an in-depth research project on how that company could improve its business. This kind of learning by doing is a hallmark of the Gabelli curriculum at every level.
