My final year at Reading

By Kunhui (Aaron) Luo, Part 3 BSc Finance and Investment Banking student

My final year has been really busy but fruitful, which is also the reason that I felt it passed so quickly. Even though the modules in this year were very tough, I quite enjoyed every lecture and learning moments with my friends when we prepared for the exams. I found that it’s wonderful to spend the whole day in the seminar room discussing questions and chatting with friends. During the exam period, we showed up to the reception almost every day to book a room, and I absolutely believe that Caroline and Jonny (Admin team) soon felt tired of seeing our faces. Some friends jokingly said, “do you guys just live in the ICMA Centre, you guys are always here whenever we come!”. Well, actually, if allowed, I would do it during the exam period because the Center is much better than my house (just a joke, 100% sure I will be kicked out by Leanne, the building manager).

Although it was quite busy during the final year, I still went traveling with my friends to several countries in Europe. We went to Germany in February, Spain in April and Portugal in May. Almost once a month, which made some of my friends feel that I was on holidays for my whole spring term (what a misunderstanding, in reality, I suffered revising for Financial Engineering). However, it was good to relax on the trips after intensive exams, although sometimes we suffered from the concern about exam results.

Reflecting on my time at university

During my 3-year studying, there were too many experiences that I want to highlight. I really enjoyed the time when I was working in groups such as the Portfolio Management project and Private Equity project. To be honest, the moment we worked together is the most memorable. Every member in our team tried their best to contribute to the group work. Whilst working, we cracked some funny jokes which made the time pass so quickly, especially the night before the deadline.

In addition, I was really lucky to be awarded the prize for the best performance and the Chancellor’s Award in my first two years. It was a great honour! Furthermore, I’m also grateful to the ICMA Centre for letting me participate in the Summer Program in Tsinghua University, where I had a great summer and the opportunity to make a lot of friends from all over the world.

Why I chose to study finance at the ICMA Centre?

(Officially) Henley Business School has a great reputation for its brilliant business courses, both at home and aboard, and ICMA Centre is quite famous within the financial industry.

(Personally) One thing I never regret is my decision to study Finance at the ICMA Centre. My learning experience here has helped me to build up the solid foundation of financial knowledge and practical skills for the industry. In addition, ICMA Centre provides different kinds of resources to develop skillsets and explore my future career in financial industry. I am quite grateful to every person in the ICMA Centre for your kind help. Even though my boring face showed up too frequent in the ICMA reception, everyone was still quite willing to offer different kinds of help not only in my academic experience but also in my campus life, which made me always feel supported.

If I can only use one word to describe ICMA Centre, it is Home.