Student Profile: Global View

Telia Weisman '08
Undergraduate thesis: “Economic Growth and Electricity Prices: A Sector Causality Analysis”

I was an economics major in college and wrote a thesis on electricity deregulation and pricing. That led me to my career after school, as an energy trader for a company called AES and then for Southern California Edison.

When I was applying to MBA programs, I liked the idea of the new curriculum, because as an energy trader, I had to have a more global view. So it made sense to me to not look at things in a compartmentalized way. To learn about those compartments, but to definitely understand how they all fit together. When I first graduate, I will probably work in one of those compartments, but I will be able to understand the perspectives of people within other areas. And that will allow me to better represent my own ideas.

One of the best things about the curriculum is that the professors actually talk to each other. They know what you learned in Accounting yesterday, and they know what you learned in Sourcing and Managing Funds. They mention key concepts that were in another class, so everything gets reinforced. At the beginning you look at things as a little bit compartmentalized, but then it all gets pulled together as the curriculum builds upon itself.

The finance faculty here is unbelievable. They wrote the book on what they're teaching. I was lucky enough to take Frank Fabozzi's Structured Finance class in my first year. As incredible as it is to learn from him, it also opens doors when you're interviewing. When people hear that you learned finance from Frank Fabozzi, they suddenly want to talk to you.

When I had my internship job offers in front of me, I called Professor Fabozzi at home. And he sat down and went through the offers with me, and he was able to help guide the way I was thinking about the different opportunities. It’s incredible that a professor of that notoriety would have time in his evening at home to sit down and go over the ins and outs of your job offers.

I'm going to spend the summer at JPMorgan on a debt capital markets desk, and I am going to go into finance after I graduate. At Yale you can be 100% finance, 100% nonprofit, or somewhere in the middle. In California, I volunteered, mentoring an eight-year-old foster-care child. I am planning on continuing to volunteer, and I hope to work on a nonprofit board one day.

Interviewed on April 16, 2007.