Seton Hall’s newest breadwinners have returned from a long day at work, kicked off their shoes and are ready to tell their story.
Five students from the Stillman School of Business and Whitehead School of Diplomacy won third place in the Fed Challenge after several rounds of competition and semifinals.
Team members, including Richard Hernandez, Bridget Murphy and Donald Cummings, prepared for months to draft a presentation outlining what changes in monetary policy would affect the current inflation rates.
“The Fed Challenge is basically a mock Federal Open Market Committee,” said team member Daniel MacDonald, a junior economics and math major. “It simulates Alan Greenspan’s meeting with his Board of Governors and presidents of other federal reserve banks to discuss current economic conditions.”
The FOMC, as a part of the Federal Reserve, is the body that controls the apolitical monetary policy. After evaluating the current state of the economy, including the money supply and inflation rates, the FOMC then decides what action to take with the “target federal funds rate.” That figure then serves as the interest rate at which money is loaned from the Federal Reserve to member banks.
“We presented for 20 minutes on current economic conditions, from a PowerPoint that we had designed, and then answered questions from a panel of three judges for 15 minutes,” said Ryan Gianneschi, a senior economics major in the Stillman School.
However, Gianneschi said there was a catch.
“Newer information and numbers on the economy came out two days before competition,” he said.
MacDonald said the team had to rush to update its presentation the morning of the competition.
Qualifying rounds for the Fed Challenge were held Nov. 10.
“Our team went to New York and competed with about 20 other teams from various colleges and universities around the New York area,” MacDonald said. “We won our heat and were, therefore, allowed to advance to the next round.”
The next round on Nov. 17 consisted of seven regional teams: SUNY Geneseo, Boston College, Harvard, Bard, Ramapo, Rutgers and Seton Hall.
“Our success in the first round in the morning qualified us to progress to the finals in the afternoon,” Gianneschi said.
Seton Hall advanced with SUNY Geneseo, Boston College and Rutgers.
“The team really felt like we had nailed our presentation,” Murphy, a junior diplomacy major, said. “Walking out of the conference room, team member Dan MacDonald pulled out some stellar victory dance moves. The whole sequence was quite impressive.”
Fianneschi said the team was more comfortable with its presentation the second time around.
“The judges, however, were definitely tougher and much stiffer,” he said.
The final presentation took place in front of a large audience of other teams, Wall Street regulars and supporters.
“The judges were high-level employees of the Federal Reserve and members of top consulting firms,” MacDonald said. “In this very nerve-racking final round, we ended up placing third.”
Hernandez and Gianneschi said the competition was very subjective.
Before their success on Wall Street, however, teammates spent months in preparation.
“We trained every Tuesday and Thursday morning for an hour before class,” Hernandez said.
Teammates said certain classes assisted them while competing.
“Money and Banking was the most important course we took in preparation,” Gianneschi said. “Entry level macroeconomics also lays a great foundation.”
MacDonald said there is very little math involved.
“Most of it is a thorough understanding of macroeconomics and interpretation of graphs,” he said.
The team was advised by professor Ellen Overbay.
“Professor Overbay always stressed that it was our project, our project to work with, with our own knowledge,” she said. “We could not have done it without her, but she let us develop it.”
Gianneschi said some other teams had professional debate coaches and speech writers.
“We don’t do that,” he said.
Professor Tony Loviscek, chair of the Finance and Legal Studies department, also served as a mentor to the team.
“Before competitions, (Loviscek) met with us from 9:30 p.m. to 11:30 p.m. at night, reviewed the whole presentation, made us better and well-rounded competitors,” Gianneschi said.
For coming in third, team members each took home a $500 check, as well as $7,500 for the Stillman School. Checks were presented at a gala reception hosted by Moody’s Investment Services, a business consulting firm on Wall Street.
“It was a great networking opportunity,” Gianneschi said. “Moody’s sponsored all of the rewards, which is a nice reward for all of the work we put into it.”
MacDonald said the money they received was just icing on the cake.
“The intangible gains of an intense study of advanced monetary and some very close relationships that result in working so hard in a team setting far surpassed these monetary awards,” he said.
MacDonald said the team plans to work on their mistakes and do even better next year.
“We did beat Columbia and Harvard,” Gianneschi said. “We are kinda a big deal.”
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