Gain Experience

Gaining experience through campus organizations is a great way to showcase your skills. For underclassmen, it is important to build leadership experience within campus organizations, and to prepare for work experience while maintaining a high GPA.

Here are some campus organizations that you may consider joining; many of these are organized through Associated Students (A.S.):
 

Banking and Finance

• A.S. Community Financial Fund (CFF): Conduct student-to-student financial literacy education through workshops and presentations.
• A.S. Finance & Business Committee: Oversee and allocate A.S. funds to student organizations.
• Blockchain at UCSB: Learn about digital currency and numerous topics such as Solidity coding for developers, environmental applications of the blockchain, and app building for the world of finance.
   

Consulting

• 180 Degrees Consulting: Foster partnerships with clients from various industries within consulting to provide students with hands-on experience.
• A.S. Office of Controller: Serve as a consulting unit for A.S. entities and seek proposals for business enterprises or ventures within A.S.
   

Investment Management

• A.S. Investment Advisory Committee (IAC): Participate in student-run committee managing and investing A.S. funds into companies. 
• Finance Connection: Provide students with information regarding the finance industry, and connect students with successful alumni.
• TAMID Investment Group: Gain practical investing and consulting experience with the Israeli economy.

Early on in your time at UCSB, you should strategize your research for companies you want to intern at; this is essential to understanding which skills you need to specifically develop in order to be marketable. 

During the summer after your junior year, it is ideal to land a competitive internship with a global financial company. An internship will allow you to become comfortable utilizing the jargon that is communicated on a day-to-day basis within finance. It will be impressive if you are able to speak about the knowledge you gained, such as performance of financial markets, explanation of key financial concepts (e.g., profits, expenditures, assets, and mergers), or calculation of advanced formulas in Excel (e.g., pivot tables or Vlookup).

The UCSB Economic Forecast Project conducts research and analyzes information on economic, demographic, real estate, and regional business trends encompassing the Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, and Ventura County areas. One way in which students can get involved is by applying to become a research analyst intern for the organization.

UCSB Professional and Continuing Education offers various courses in finance, such as Strategic Investments. For careers in finance, we typically recommend taking individual courses that interest you, instead of completing a certificate program due to the out-of-pocket expenses that will be incurred (financial aid assistance is typically not available).

This can be a useful method to become familiar with terminology and concepts used in the financial sector, because UCSB does not usually offer these types of courses in undergraduate programs.