<p>So I'm in CAS but want to minor in business and either one works. From that perspective, I should just take the easier one.</p>
<p>But I also want a course which will prepare me for investment banking, and I've heard Professor Curtis' class is really good. But I'm also intimidated by the alleged difficulty of his class.</p>
<p>Which one should I go for?</p>
<p>My friend was a TA in hotel finance. I am very familiar with AEM finance as well. Hotel finance is heavily involved with using a financial calculator, answering very quantitative questions on bond payments, cost of capital, stock splits, etc.</p>
<p>AEM finance on the other hand is probably a 50/50 split of quantitative questions and conceptual questions. Only simple, non-financial calculators are permitted on tests, but you’re given 4-5 pgs. of formula sheets. I think this is extremely favorable.</p>
<p>My idea of the winner in terms of:</p>
<p>Interview preparation - AEM - talks more about current events, corporate action events, and is more conceptual - which is far more useful when somebody asks you WHY X or Y is the case, not “how do you calculate X or Y.”</p>
<p>Familiarity with certain specific formulas - Hotel -this is the one advantage I can see. You’ll get practice using standard deviations/correlations/etc. on a financial calculator. This is more from rote practice than better teaching or course materials.</p>
<p>Investment banking preparation - AEM - this course alone won’t prepare you fully, but it covers all the different topics that an investment banker needs to know. The specific calculations you’ll be using for DCF/other models will be taught to you at work in any case. And AEM finance does a better job of explaining WHY DCF works and what other options there are.</p>
<p>As I’m going through this list I don’t think there’s much more to say. My first reaction, most importantly, was: the class really isn’t that hard. Anybody I know who’s become an investment banker (who wasn’t an athlete or had other special circumstances) has scored 90+ on all four exams. I haven’t seen many people score less than an average decent score who ended up going into a high-powered position. </p>
<p>If you end up finding this material challenging, you’re probably going to have difficulty becoming an investment banker in any case.</p>
<p>It troubles me slightly that you’re intimidated by difficulty of an introductory finance class–and are looking for the easiest class–but are interested in investment banking. I am saying this in context of business probably being one of the easiest standard minors you can consummate at Cornell. </p>
<p>In addition to taking AEM finance, I would recommend you evaluate why you want to do investment banking, and whether you have any real passion or interest for finance. If you do, difficulty shouldn’t be a deterrent, but an incentive. If you don’t, you won’t have much to look forward to upon graduation for some years to come.</p>
<p>Rich Curtis is one of the best Professors at Cornell. Highly suggest taking AEM finance with him.</p>
<p>^^
So which one of them is harder?</p>
<p>The thing is, I’m REALLY bad at math so quantitative questions intimidate me. I only want to do banking to make money-- I’m much more interested in politics.</p>
<p>AEM Finance is considered harder. My friends in hotel finance said it was hard <em>not</em> to get a 100 in the class.</p>
<p>When you go to interview for IB internships/jobs, you will meet Cornell/AEM Alumni who will ask you why you did not take finance with Curtis.</p>
<p>You have the wrong attitude. Investment bankers LOVE challenge. There’s no easy way here. I suggest Hotel Finance. Within the School of Hotel Administration, there is a finance, accounting and real estate (FARE) concentration. Within that concentration, there is a securities analysis/investment banking track. You need to spend time looking at each course within AEM and SHA and read every course description. For me, the answer is clear: Hotel School. You’ll be taking complex courses in real estate finance and securities investments like Securitization and Structured Financial Products and Investment in Real Estate Securities and Funds.</p>
<p>“The thing is, I’m REALLY bad at math so quantitative questions intimidate me. I only want to do banking to make money-- I’m much more interested in politics.”</p>
<p>You won’t go into investment banking. Ibanking requires high level of math. Nobody who wants to do ibanking just for money can get into ibanking. If you’re interested in politics and have no interest for banking, then do politics. You’re going to waste your time trying to get into ibanking. Each firm accepts <2% of its 30000+ applicants each year.</p>
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<p>You can’t be serious. Thanks for the laughs though.</p>
<p>My kid was in CAS double majored in math/econ. She took few AEM and Hotel finance courses, and did very well. She actually TA some of those courses. One thing she did say was because she wasn’t in AEM, her IB interviewers didn’t expect her to know as much about IB related questions. She was able to respond sometimes, “As a math major, that is not something I am familiar with,” and her interviewers were fine with it. She thought her friends in AEM were expected to know more and were asked tougher questions. </p>
<p>After she was hired she was required to go through a fairly rigorous training program for 2 months in London. The training program required them to take an exam every Fri on the material they were taught and every Mon the result was posted, the trainees were placed in different classes based on their test results. At the end of training program, trainees were let go if they couldn’t pass all tests. My kid thought her math background helped her greatly. She was the only woman from US who passed the tests first round.</p>