Everything I Need to Know I Learned in Business School

If you had asked me during my undergrad or grad finance classes if I thought what I was learning was useful, I probably would have replied, "I only need math to count my money." After launching into the real world (too many years ago to list here because it scares me how long ago it was), I realized that learning how to use my financial calculator prepared me for many things:

*My first job out of college in mortgage and credit for Merrill Lynch
*My ability to calculate my own mortgage payments, conduct a break-even analysis, and decide whether or not buying a townhouse was the right option for me
*Walking into the car dealership, sitting in front of the finance manager and whipping out my financial calculator to figure out my own car payment to see if I could afford it or not (and, boy, you should have seen the look on his face)

The knowledge I gained can be applied to real world situations, and I encourage business students to find ways that what their learning can be applied to life--even if they decide to work outside of the finance industry. Counting on your fingers and toes only gets you so far. I still treasure my financial calculator that I've had since my six-year stint at Merrill. It's moved with me from house to house, and while I don't use it as much as I once did, there are still instances where I pull it out to tell a friend what their mortgage payment would be or figure out the future value of my investment so I can figure out how rich I'll be when I retire (wink, wink).