Whether you’re a beginner, a seasoned investor or simply someone wanting to take a risk to try to make a little money, you should consider joining Quinnipiac University’s new Girls That Invest club.
This semester, five female students created a safe space for women to learn about basic business principles and personal investing on campus.
On Mondays at 9:15 p.m. in SB 123, members can play finance themed Kahoot! and hear from several guest speakers who are successful women in finance. Additionally, they will work with the M&T Bank Center for Women & Business alongside Tuvana Rua, co-director of M&T Bank Center for Women & Business.
Abigail Alpert, a senior political science major and Girls That Invest president, said she started the club to empower young women in the world of basic finance and to educate them about personal investments.
Alpert started the club along with Kelsey Leighton, Ashley Usewicz, Kaitlyn Salaris and Meagan Kogan, who were all in MBA-615 Skills for Contemporary Business Issues together.
“We just wanted to create an atmosphere for females to come and ask questions about investments and learn about basic finance and we’re starting at the get-go,” Alpert said. “We’re not going to go all the way down to the nitty-gritty with calculations.”
Alpert said some of the specific industry-based skills that women can learn at the meetings are how to look at different market capitalizations, how to allocate money to a specific stock and when is the best time to buy, sell and trade stocks.
Finance as a whole is a male-dominated industry. In financial services, 46% of employees are women, but they only make up 15% of executive positions and hold only 9% and 6% of senior roles in venture capital and private equity firms, respectively, according to Daniels College of Business at University of Denver.
“We realize that the finance and investment world is very male dominated and it’s hard for women to feel comfortable and safe and really express themselves, so we created this club because of that,” said Leighton, a senior applied business major and Girls That Invest vice president.
Quinnipiac currently has an investment club on campus that mainly male students attend, the executive board members said.
“(Investment club) is really more catered to people who are in finance and given that finance is such a male dominated sector, there isn’t really much female representation,” Alpert said. “It could be a little bit scary to attend a meeting that is very male dominanted, through no fault of anybody.”
There are several other national organizations that focus on providing a network for women in investment-related fields, such as Girls Who Invest.
“Globally, the percentage of female fund managers has consistently hovered around 12% over the past two decades,” according to Girls Who Invest website.
When just getting into investing, there are several different resources that people can use.
Five steps to learn how to invest are to start as early as possible, decide how much to invest, open an investment account, pick an investment strategy and understand your investment options, according to NerdWallet.
Some of the e-board members gave tips on how people can easily learn about investing and even practice without the risk of losing money.
Alpert said there are several simulators such as Investopedia, where people can practice investing in different companies without using actual money.
Kogan, a senior accounting major and Girls That Invest vice president of membership said people can start by doing research and collaborating with others.
“Even I don’t know that much about investing and I’m still learning as we’re doing this club and learning together,” Kogan said.
