Each year, Alfred University sends a group of students to the Quinnipiac Global Asset Management Education (GAME) Forum in New York City. This year's trip, held March 19 and 20, reinforced something that no classroom lecture can fully deliver: what it actually feels like to be in the room with people who manage real money for a living.
Students in Alfred University’s Student Managed Investment Fund (SMIF) traveled to New York City March 19-20 for the Qunnipiac Global Asset Management Education (GAME) Forum, where Industry-leading professionals discuss their insights on the financial market. Students shown above with Alfred University alumnus Luke Berberich ’19 (left), vice president, Finance Transformation at Citi, are, from left: Amina Shamshibayeva, Vladyslava Makarenko, Maksym Smirnov, and Christopher Coyle.
The GAME Forum is one of the largest student-run investment conferences in the world. Thousands of students, faculty, and industry professionals gather each year for keynote speakers, panel discussions, and breakout sessions focused on current market trends and investment strategy. For Alfred's Student Managed Investment Fund (SMIF), attending is less about collecting business cards and more about stress-testing what they've learned.
SMIF is a club which provides students the opportunity to manages real investments. It was started in 1992 with $100,000 in initial funds approved by the Alfred University Board of Trustees. Today, the fund is valued at more than $1 million.
"I thought success in investing came down to forecasting markets," said Maksym Smirnov, a junior finance, accounting, and math major and SMIF club president, who attended the GAME Forum. "But after hearing from professionals, it's more about having a disciplined framework and sticking to it."
That shift from prediction to process is the kind of lesson that takes years to learn on your own. The conference compressed it into a few days.
For first-year business analytics major Vladyslava Makarenko, her takeaway from the trip was blunter. "Knowing how to build a financial model isn't enough anymore," she said. "That's the bare minimum." Surrounded by students from over 120 universities, she got a clear look at the competition and came back motivated to work differently, not just harder.
The trip also included tours of Citi and Bloomberg headquarters, where students connected with Alfred University alumni now working in finance, including Luke Berberich ’19, vice president, Finance Transformation at Citi, who participated in SMIF all four years at Alfred; Brent Forsland ’01, Fixed Income Index project manager for Bloomberg LP; and Tom Phelan ’01 CPA, managing director, structured finance. Those conversations mattered. Industry feels less abstract to student when they are talking to someone who sat in the same classrooms they did.
One session stood out above the rest. The Outstanding Financial CEO Fireside Chat featured Zach Buchwald, CEO of Russell Investments, and Lindsay Hans, President of Merrill Wealth Management. Between them, they oversee trillions in assets. Their message was grounded: stay humble, do the job in front of you, and remember that finance, at its highest level, runs on relationships.
That's the part textbooks skip. Alfred students came back from New York with a clearer sense of what the industry actually rewards, and what it takes to get there.
Story by Andrii Maltsev '27
