Students who are interested in business may not be aware that financial planning is a viable career path. The Ohio State University College of Education and Human Ecology (EHE) and student organizations have teamed up to bring more awareness to areas of study that can lead to careers in finance.
EHE offers a major in consumer and family financial services and a minor in financial planning.
“When students do an internship in wealth management … they often don’t realize that there is a university program,” said Professor of Consumer Sciences Caezilia Loibl. The EHE programs “give them access to the certification that they need down the road.”
Though some students take introductory personal finance classes in high school, they may not realize that financial planning is a career, said George Rooney, an EHE lecturer.
“I think it’s a particular career track that students can certainly benefit from getting more exposure and awareness to,” he said. “We hear about personal finance in the media, in the newspaper, and it’s typically viewed as something that everybody should know about to take care of their own situation. How that translates into a potential career, it’s no surprise that is a little less understood.”
To help raise the profile of finance careers, the Student Financial Planning Association and the Undergraduate Finance Association have presented the Finance x Financial Planning Career Fair for the past three years. The associations’ memberships consist of students who are taking finance courses with EHE and the Fisher College of Business.
This year’s career fair at the Ohio Union drew 530 students and 55 employers, said Loibl, who is an advisor to the Student Financial Planning Association.
“The purpose is to make students aware of careers in finance,” she said, “and to connect them to employers for internships and entry-level positions.”
The career fair is especially helpful for freshmen and sophomores who are in the early stages of exploring career paths, said Audrey Planner, the Undergraduate Finance Association’s vice president of special events.
The career fair is designed to help students gain experience in presenting themselves to potential employers at networking events, she said.
“This is just a great way for them to have the opportunity to … know about and prepare for a career fair and just start getting their foot in the door and get the experience and exposure,” said Planner, a finance major. “We hold a resume workshop before and a networking workshop before [the career fair] to get prepared.”
In addition to the career fair, student organizations offer a speaker series with industry professionals and a variety of free programs that help undergraduates learn about courses of study in finance, said Braden Riehl, vice president of the Student Financial Planning Association.
“Most students know what a financial adviser is, but they don’t know about financial planning as an education track,” said Riehl, who is majoring in finance and minoring in financial planning. “We do professional development [programming]. It’s giving students information they need.”
For students who are still deciding if they want to pursue careers in finance, EHE’s financial planning programs can help them prepare for internships in the field, Loibl said.
“The students do have those internships and then they realize, ‘Oh yes, now I need the coursework,’” she said. “It would be good to kind of get ahead of it — start the coursework and be prepared for the internship.”
For more information about the consumer and family financial services major and the financial planning minor, visit the programs’ website.
