Students can experience the thrill of making millions of dollars on paper, or lose their shirts. Only a handful of other business colleges around the country, including Wake Forest, Carnegie Mellon, MIT, and Cornell, have trading rooms. The Smeal College Trading Room is a bridge between the classroom and the financial markets, and will give students live experience the turbulent world of global trading and risk management, exposure that prepares them from day one for careers. There will be three display boards running stock quotations and other data on a continuous feed in the Trading Room, as well as nearly 44 trading stations. These stations will be equipped as a trading desk would be in a Wall Street firm - with computer screens providing data feeds from multiple sources.
Plans also call for a multipurpose lab, a systems office, and a student lounge area.
Additional fund-raising will further support its construction and ongoing operation.