The halls of higher learning are ringing with the sounds of potential profits this week as a group of University of Calgary students take stock of their financial futures.
A new club called TechInvestors is helping students earn while they learn by teaching how to profit off capital gains with investments in the Canadian technology market sector.
“We kind of feel like we’re pioneers,” says Melissa Bergen, a fourth-year student working on a double degree in computer and biological science who launched the club this year. “Our goal is to help other students learn about investing. And while doing that, we’re going to try it ourselves.”
The club gives students the opportunity not only to learn about financial strategies, but to invest directly in the areas of their own budding expertise.
Bergen, 20, has been playing the stocks and mutual funds since she was 12 and earning money from her flyer-delivery route — but as a university student now sees a real connection between her investments and her education.
“We all learn about the science, but what about the business aspect?” she asks. “You can’t avoid that, it’s always going to be there, and that’s what keeps things going. You wouldn’t exist if you didn’t have the money to finance your research.”
Each student — there are seven in the club so far — plans to invest a token $20 a month in a science or technology-based stock, then sit back and watch the ticker run.
“I find it exciting in a lab when something finally works correctly, and you think: ‘Wow, great,’ ” says 24-year-old computer science student Kiran Bains.
“But somebody else is going to be profiting. And I just think students should be aware of that.”
Bains watched with envy earlier this year as the investment markets turned into a high-tech gravy train. “It just seemed kind of unfair,” sighs Bains, who already has a degree in biological sciences. “This was something that I know. I can figure out what is going on behind it.”
TechInvestors has already set up its own web site (http://www.telusplanet.net/ public/sbergen/main_index.html), with a catchy title: Guess What’s Just Crawled Out of the Science Lab?
It offers students a primer on biotechnology, the human genome project, proteomics, and bioinformatics, as well as links to financial web sites.
This week, the group organized a visit to campus by Altamira Financial Services to talk to students about the basic principles of investing. They’ve set their sights on luring übertech phenoms like CADVision founder Geoffrey Shmigelsky, currently auditing courses in genetics at the university, to become guest lecturers.
U of C biological science professor Michael Bentley says the club will give students a chance to scope out the financial side — including stock options — of companies that may one day end up being their employers.
“Some of the things that people are doing in companies to try and cure diseases, or create medicines, or make plants that work better, are real applications of the kinds of things they’re learning in class,” he says.
“You’re much better off to invest in something you know something about.” Twenty-five years ago, he notes, a science grad could look forward to a career in academics or working on a government project. Today, Canadian biotech is an industry of hundreds of companies employing thousands of people.
For Bergen, it’s important for all students, rich or poor, to learn about investment basics.
“When we began it was all kind of hazy — what’s the difference between a stock, a bond and a fund? To be honest, a lot of science students and other people aren’t too familiar with those concepts,” she says. “But it’s not that bad when you start to learn things.”
The bottom line is translating the language of business into the language of youth. “Of course, I’d like to see some capital come out of this,” declares Bergen.
“But the learning experience is going to be the most beneficial.”
Web Watch:
www.telusplanet.net/public/sbergen/main_index.html
