Majors: Canfield BHP, Finance, Certificate of Computer Science
Company: Evercore Investment Banking – Manhattan
Position: Summer Investment Banking Analyst – Mergers and Acquisitions
Topics of Interest: Finance, Mergers and Acquisitions, and Venture Capital
Class: Senior, Class of 2020
Catherine Cheng is a rising senior who’s excited for her final year in college. Throughout her first three years at UT, she focused on the University Securities Investment Team (USIT) – a finance organization out of the McCombs School of Business where she is the sitting president. Next year, she plans on starting a new internal USIT division focused on market intelligence where the topics of computer and data science will integrate with the more traditional aspects of finance – an integration that she and her peers at USIT have long asked for. Catherine and her team hope to establish this new division at USIT for the benefit of future generations and enable students of all majors to learn and pursue their interests in quantitative finance and data science.
Additionally, Catherine has been an active member of the Genesis Program – a student alumni effort to help student entrepreneurs raise capital at UT – where she currently serves as Due Diligence Partner. Catherine explains that she’s always been interested in finance and more specifically, venture-capital. “That’s basically what my journey has been like here at McCombs. I’m focusing on finance but more specifically, helping student entrepreneurs. Going into senior year, I’m actually really excited to have slightly fewer classes because it means I’m going to have more time to give back to both the finance and entrepreneurship communities.”
When Catherine made her college decision, she wrote an op-ed piece for the student-run publication “FreshU” titled, ‘Why I Rejected MIT’, and if you haven’t already read it, I encourage you to do so. Catherine discusses her reasons for deciding on Canfield BHP at UT versus the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). It’s a wonderfully-refreshing look behind a student’s indecision between two outstanding programs and the process of elimination. I wanted to talk to her about her thoughts behind this piece and more. Continue reading