Richard Fraim
Financial Services Track
(Economics '09, University of Virginia)
“I discovered an appreciation for finance at the very start of my fourth year at U.Va.,” says Richard Fraim (A&S ’09, M.S. in Commerce ’10). “I took one specific class that gave me just a little taste of it, and I found that I really enjoyed it. I liked it even more than Economics, which was my major—and that’s when I started thinking that finance might be something I could look towards as a career.”
Now enrolled in McIntire’s M.S. in Commerce Program, Fraim says he’s not only getting the financial skills he’ll need to launch his career, but also the professional skills necessary for long-term career success. Fundamentally, he explains, “the M.S. in Commerce Program exposes you to a lot more real-life scenarios than, say, an Economics theory class. And it’s a very integrated curriculum, where you’re looking at the same scenario from multiple perspectives and trying to come up with the best solutions.”
Fraim says that the Program is providing him with an arsenal of critical professional skills, including communication, presentation, and teamwork skills, as well as insight into the intricacies of organizational behavior. “One of the things I didn’t fully anticipate when I enrolled in the Program was the kinds of professional skills I’d learn, and how fully integrated they’d be in the curriculum,” he says.
One critical new piece of know-how he’s developed, Fraim says, is that of working effectively on a team. “I think in my entire undergraduate career I had one group project,” he says. “Here, I meet with my group a couple of times a week—the Program is much more oriented to the way you’ll be working in the real world.” Moreover, Fraim says, hearing from his teammates and classmates, who come from a variety of academic and cultural backgrounds, has helped to broaden his perspective. “There are people with engineering degrees who’ve been trained to think one way—very quantitatively—and other people who might be poetry or philosophy majors, who’ve been trained to think in a very different way. And we’ve all been trained to think from an American standpoint, so hearing from our international classmates really makes you think twice about some of the scenarios that you study.”
When it comes to career and academic advising, though, Fraim says the Program’s focus is very much on the individual. “Something that I’ve really enjoyed in the M.S. in Commerce Program is talking to my professors daily,” he says. “You really get to know them, and they get to know you, which helps to promote a good learning environment.” The same is true, he says, of the Program’s Career Services staff: “They really work hard to understand what you’re looking for,” he says. “They’re more than accommodating.”
Put it all together, and Fraim says he’s a far more attractive candidate to employers than he was even a few months ago. “I think having that extra education, that extra degree, and that extra coursework helps you stand out from the crowd,” he says. “I’ve had a lot more success getting interviews and talking to people than I did previously.”