As a precursor to today’s class – I came into Sauder as one of those, “Nooo numbers, keep them away from me” which leads into “Pfffft, of course I’m not going into Finance or Accounting!” people, so I wasn’t looking super forward to a class on Finance.
Luckily, Murray Carlson was a pretty good speaker. He kept us engaged throughout his presentation, and definitely incorporated non-embarrassing individual interaction. I think part of the problem was that before today, I honestly had no idea what “Finance” entailed, despite working as an assistant to a Financial Consultant at Investors Group for the past four summers (go figure). When we learned about the different parts of Finance (stocks, investing, loans, etc.), I still wasn’t overly thrilled. However, there was one portion that jumped out at me – microloans/microcredit.
In 2005, the “founder” of microcredit, Muhammad Yunus, won the Nobel Peace Prize for his microloans project, the Grameen Bank. The Nobel Prize Committee had this to say about Grameen Bank’s far-reaching effects:
Lasting peace cannot be achieved unless large population groups find ways in which to break out of poverty.
The Committee mentioned peace when talking about a Finance-rooted endeavor. We tend to think of businessmen as big, bad, money-hungry demons, but microloans have done a whole lot of good for millions of people. I hope that one day, I will find myself as a part of a similar organization that harnesses the power of business to create such immense social good.