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“The Master of Finance program is special. It’s finance-focused but has a relatively flexible curriculum, which I really like.”
Elisa Becker-Foss is in her third and final semester as a Master of Finance student at MIT Sloan — but she’s been on campus a lot longer than that. As an undergraduate studying physics and business in Germany, she spent a semester abroad at MIT, and it was a formative experience. After graduation, she plans to focus on the intersection of finance and cybersecurity. Elisa shares, “I liked MIT so much that I decided to come back.”
A Day with Elisa
8:30 am
I started my day with checking emails and catching up on homework for cryptography. It’s outside my curriculum, but the MFin program really allows flexibility with courses. So I took a challenging one!
9 am
I’m on a Zoom meeting for my Analytics Lab class. We met with our sponsor to discuss some results right before office hours for cryptography.
9:30 am
I’m meeting with my TA, Surya Mathialagan, to go over homework. I love cryptography, but I definitely need to go to office hours. It’s a lot of work! My TA is a computer science PhD student, and she’s amazing. Because she’s a student, she’s able to understand our point of view.
11 am
I’m meeting my friend Jiulei Zhu from my cohort for coffee at Life Alive. She’s also getting her MFin. We like to chat about recruiting stuff. She was keeping me posted on her interview results, and I was filling her in on my interviews at consulting firms.
12 pm
I’m meeting with Isabel Waitz, who’s working with me in the MIT Cyberclinic. We’re doing a vulnerability assessment with a client, and we’re discussing our report. We have an external sponsor, and it’s a real case. We’re collaborating with a small city and trying to create a more secure city infrastructure by assessing their vulnerabilities. That’s what I love about the class: It’s not just theory, but also hands-on application.
1 pm
Now I’m back with my group for Analytics Lab: Abhranil Chakrabarti, Bibhabasu Das, Arushi Jain, and Jillian Puskas. We’re discussing our earlier call with our sponsor and our results. It’s a great group of MBA students and business analytics students. I like the class because you hang out with other Sloanies, and everyone brings a different skill set. It’s collaborative, and we joke a lot.
1:15 pm
I think we’re definitely laughing about simplifying terms to please our sponsor. It’s a difficult task!
1:30 pm
I’m at my favorite cafeteria, in our main MIT building, on the fourth floor. They have really good sandwiches. It’s not too crowded, and it’s very quiet. It’s a hidden secret. I got a tuna sandwich.
2 pm
I’m posing in front of my student dorm! I had to grab my PC from home. I love my one-minute commute, and it’s close to the T.
4 pm
I’m taking the Red Line to Harvard, because I’m cross-registered at the Kennedy School. I’m taking a class called Future Issues of Cybersecurity, so it’s also a cybersecurity-related class. I had a busy day!
