Interview, Majed Nabod, winner U.S.E. Master's Thesis Award
The winner of this year’s Master's Thesis Award of the Utrecht University School of Economics is Majed Nabod. The prize has been handed out to Majed during the Financial Management graduation ceremony on 12 October 2017. Majed is a graduate of our Financial Management MSc programme. He has been supervised by Frank Verbeeten, Professor in Accounting.
Who is Majed?
I am a 23 year old guy who loves swimming, traveling and spending time with friends and family. My family originally comes from Iraq, but I was 1 year old when we moved to the Netherlands, meaning I grew up in the Netherlands, a country which I have come to love dearly. Growing up amidst two cultures I have come to appreciate the beauty in both. I have a passion for Finance and love working with both financial data as well as people. I very much look forward to my journey within the field of finance and am eager to see how far I can go.
Congratulations, what does this U.S.E. Thesis award means for you?
Thank you, I am very proud and happy to have been rewarded with this award. Especially, knowing how hard my fellow friends and colleagues have worked on their individual thesis. I have seen first-hand the amount of effort, time and creativity every master student at U.S.E. has put into writing their thesis. It is an honour to have my thesis selected as the best from amongst all of the other wonderful theses.
What was your motivation to apply for the Master’s programme Financial Management?
Having previously followed the bachelor study Economics and Business Economics at U.S.E., I was already familiar with the University and the broad but interesting field of Finance. My positive experience and eagerness to learn more made me want to continue to study the field of Finance more in depth. Thankfully, Utrecht University had the Master's programme Financial Management, which was exactly what I was looking for. The Master's programme combined many important areas of Finance, had a very nice international focus and it being a fairly new programme meant it was very modern and up to date. The fact that all of this together fit well with what I was looking for and also knowing the quality of the professors at the U.S.E. made this the right decision for me.
What did you learn from this Master’s programme?
I have learned many things from this Master's programme over the past year, including but not limited to; how to properly work with and analyse financial data, how to read and understand financial statements, how to value firms and individual projects, and how to incorporate macro-economic conditions into these valuations. There is a very broad range of topics that are covered ranging from learning how to properly evaluate and fund a start-up to how to identify and hedge currency exchange rate risks for large multinational companies. Although there is a wide range of topics, each topic is evaluated in depth and the ability to choose my own electives allowed me to set the course up just the way I wanted it.
What are your future plans?
Following graduation I took some time off to travel and enjoy many different places and now I'm ready to start my career within Finance. About a week and a half ago I started applying for jobs and am now in the middle of the job application process and going through interviews, specifically for a role within (junior) Financial Control or more broadly Finance Traineeships. Either way, I plan on challenging myself and growing both professionally and as a person. I belief the future is bright and I am eager to find out exactly how far i can go in my path to becoming a Finance professional. I wish the best to all my fellow graduates and hope to see them on the road ahead.
My favourite quote
"Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom" --Aristotle