A semester to remember!

These past few months have been fantastic for the Investment Society! Starting from zero members in August to now over 470 (with many from EPS), they are one of the largest and most active societies at the University.

Our hard work and dedication to making investment accessible to all on campus culminated in us being shortlisted as one of the top four, out of over 140 UK societies, in the Bright Network’s ‘Society of the Year’ awards.

Starting a society completely virtually wasn’t an easy task. However, due to the impressive efforts of all committee members, especially our President David Dwek, we’ve had an extremely successful start. Here are a few things we’ve been up to:

Our student-led blog, ‘The Student Investor’ has achieved a staggering figure of more than 15,000 readers in 92 different countries after being founded by the President last year! These free-to-read articles are crafted by our wonderful student writing team, whose diligence enables us to publish three pieces per week. These articles range from advising students how to secure their dream internship or graduate scheme at top Investment Banks, to explaining key financial concepts and current events. If you’re not already subscribed, what are you waiting for! Sign up for free at uobinvest.org/subscribe to receive all our posts directly into your email inbox.

Thanks to the wonderful Henry Gardner-Roberts and Amritpal Virdee, the Society has been able to run weekly Investing 101 sessions via Zoom, teaching students the basics of investing. We actively encourage all students, regardless of your degree background, to attend, so that you can learn crucial new skills and meet other students. We believe finance and investing isn’t just for economics or finance students but for anyone who wants to learn! These sessions range from understanding how to value a company to simple macroeconomics to help make sense of the global financial markets. It’s been so great to see lots of EPS students at these sessions, and we hope to see lots more of you next semester! All our events are recorded, so you can catch up with them on our YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbqiaW6zHMZUvr2Zgxyp5rw

Talking of our YouTube channel, we’ve uploaded most of our guest speaker events there too, which are definitely worth a watch! From our first webinar with Simon Ree back in August talking about his recently published best-selling book, ‘The Tao of Trading’ and how Options Trading can enable anyone to obtain financial freedom, to hearing from an M&A Executive at Deloitte, it’s clear we’re attracting some of the top professionals from the industry! We definitely recommend you coming along to our keynote speaker talks next semester, where we’ll be hearing from even more influential figures from within the financial world! We’ve also uploaded our more advanced weekly ‘Alpha Room’ sessions which aim to give students, who are already passionate about investing, a platform to discuss anything investing related!

Covid-19 has certainly put a dampener on our plans, but it’s not defined us or stopped us. The closest we’ve got to an in-person social is through our football team, which competes in the University’s Campus League. It also meets up every Sunday for a social game, in which all members are welcomed and made to feel included. It’s a great opportunity to meet like-minded students in a challenging social environment. Oh, and our Society kits, which can be bought here, are a thing of beauty!

Our weekly newsletter outlines our schedule for the week. It’s emailed to all our members every Sunday. Don’t miss out, sign up here. Also, make sure to follow us on Instagram with @uobinvest to make sure you don’t miss out on any future events!

Thank you to all Investment Society EPS members for your support this semester. Next term is going to be even better, with more guest speakers, more socials (Covid-19 permitting), the launch of our very own virtual investment fund, and much more! Join us today so you don’t miss out!

We look forward to seeing you back in January,
Investment Society

To find out more about the Investment Society, visit their website www.birmingham.ac.uk/eps/investment.

There are 42 student groups associated with the College of Engineering and Physical Sciences. To learn more about their projects and activities head to www.birmingham.ac.uk/eps-societies.