During each of the first two summers in the program, the students are required to write papers. The first summer paper must be satisfactorily completed by the first week of the fall semester of the second year. This paper must be presented before the finance faculty at that time. The consequences of not completing this requirement satisfactorily are discussed below. During the first summer, each student selects a faculty member to supervise a focused area of reading from the finance literature.
Students are free to select the faculty member and the area.
Generally, the student and the faculty member negotiate a set of papers the student is to read. After the papers are read, the student writes a literature review and synthesis. Alternatively, the faculty member may agree to allow the student to demonstrate familiarity in the use of financial databases by replicating an important empirical study. When the faculty member supervising the readings or empirical study is satisfied with the paper, he or she notifies the department's Ph.D. student advisor that the student has completed this requirement. The second summer paper is used by the student to demonstrate his or her ability to initiate and complete an original research project.