What it is like working at a Hedge Fund as a University Student
A 100% black-owned and student-run hedge fund
What is a Hedge Fund: “hedge funds are alternative investments using pooled funds that employ different strategies to earn active returns, or alpha, for their investors”.
BLK Capital Management is a long/short hedge fund which means as an analyst you have a unique opportunity as to how you view the market because you are evaluating securities, that have growth potential but than you are also analyzing securities that have faults.
Since February, I have been working at BLK, which is a 100% black-owned and student-run hedge fund. BLK is sponsored by the likes of Goldman Sachs, Blackstone, Vanguard, and more. After several, interviews and creating a stock pitch for a company, I was finally admitted to being an analyst at BLK.
After a few days of being inducted into the BLK community, all the new analysts were asked to fill a form based on their personal interests, to what sector they wanted to be a part of I choose the emerging markets sector.
Along with choosing a sector within the same week, the education program began, which was lead by Ifeanyi Iscichei. The education program is extremely rigorous, and it is over the span of 9 weeks and covers the essentials for finance. You learn everything from reading a balance sheet to creating valuation models.
A lot of analysts have said to me that they have learned more within the educational program at BLK than within their own respective degrees.
Networking:
In the fall and spring BLK has a conference where they get all of their 250+ members and work with sponsors on different projects, listen to experiences on working in different firms, and so many other unique things.
These are just a few of BLK’s sponsors, and most were present at the spring conference which I attended.
Simply by just being a part of the BLK community has opened so many doors that I did not know even existed. I was able to seamlessly get an internship in Hong Kong at a private equity firm where I will be interning for 8 weeks.
After a few weeks of being within the community, I was so inspired to start a podcast. The BLK podcast is meant to enrich, educate, and aggrandize the internal and external community of BLK. There are currently two episodes published with the president of BLK, and a portfolio manager from Vanguard, but the Director of the World Bank, and a few Nobel laureates have agreed to come on the podcast. Joining BLK has truly given me access to a world I never even knew existed.
More information regarding BLK: https://www.blkcapitalmanagement.org/
