Gaining New Insights into My Own Abilities and Pushing my Boundaries

As the semester comes to an end, it is exciting to reflect on the overall experience and progress that we have made on our allocated project and within the course more generally. At the outset, I set out four goals for myself: to build confidence in my professional skills, apply theory to actual issues, learn more about a unique and different area, and consider how I work within a team. Looking back, I feel that I have fully explored all of these objectives and more. I am glad that I set these objectives as sometimes, in Graduate School, it can be a bit overwhelming and you can lose track of how things are progressing. Equally, there is little time to process what you are learning and doing. Similarly, I am grateful for these reflection posts to provide me with room to evaluate where we are at and to have a record of the progress that has taken place.

To start with an unexpected challenge, in the final hurdles of the project, we found it difficult to know when to stop researching and writing and to wrap everything up to get the final report into good shape for the client. This tied into another challenge, which was managing expectations, both with the client and within our team. While we front-loaded a significant amount of work to ensure that we could balance the project with finals, we still had a lot to do as we entered finals season. Receiving comments from the client in the middle of finals meant that we all felt a little pressure to revise our Report, with very limited time to do this. Learning from this, we could have delivered a draft Report earlier, to give us more than two weeks to revise the Report. There were also a lot of new ideas that we wanted to include in our Report, but we realised we did not realistically have time to do so. Overall, in a work context, it served as a reminder to manage expectations and be prepared to be flexible for the unexpected. 

The collaborative and sharing nature of our team was essential for the project's success. Each of us had a different background, which meant different strengths and interests.  We taught each other about the specific areas we focused on, which was great for obtaining different perspectives. Learning from such wonderful peers was a privilege, and it made the project a learning curve for all of us. Separately, Professor Flammer's enthusiasm for our project inspired and encouraged us all to do our best and push our boundaries. Her feedback and guidance were invaluable, and her support was crucial in helping us stay focused and on track. Every class was a great opportunity to learn - I developed insight and interest into so many new areas from carbon credits to impact investing to social media platforms. I particularly loved the project sharing aspect of the course.

My focus for this project has been on gender bonds and how they fit within the capital markets framework. This aligns with my SIPA specialisation within gender studies, but this has also cemented my desire to pursue a PhD in sustainable finance and inclusion. This project has been fundamental to the development of my PhD applications, a key part of which will hopefully be climate finance and how it is not directing enough cash flow to gender. On a more granular basis, some of the findings on finance's impact on gender have been incredibly interesting, with it becoming clear that impact can be both direct and indirect, intentional or non-intentional. The other element that has been key is the role of gap analysis, in that it is important to acknowledge where gender is, but also where it is not. This encouraged me to take a broader and more holistic approach with the framing of my PhD thesis, but also it is applicable to so many other areas of life.

In relation to team management, there is no hierarchy in Graduate School, and there must be a willingness to contribute. I have really enjoyed working with my group, who have been consistently dedicated and interested in the project. As we started to work on the Report,  this dynamic continued and the only challenge was having time to dedicate to the Report as finals approached (and materialised!). We developed a dynamic and supportive team environment, which has been a lot of fun. Related to this, our meetings with our client have been lively and really pushed us all on our respective areas. Our view was that our client was part of our external team, and to carry that collaborative spirit throughout our project was great.

Overall, I am really proud of the work that we have done on this project. I feel that I have learned a lot. Our client also prioritised consistently our learning, while also sharing their real-world experience. This was invaluable for a return to work, where standards are high and there are nuances to how you approach work products that I had forgotten about, from formatting to style. They asked thought-provoking questions that keep us on our toes and have enhanced the entire experience. We have all taught each other about the specific areas we have focused on, which has been critical to the project's development and success.

In conclusion, this project has been a great learning experience for me. I have gained new insights into my own abilities and have been challenged to push my boundaries in a supportive and collaborative environment. The opportunity to work with such wonderful peers and learn from them has been an honor, and the guidance and feedback from Professor Flammer have been invaluable. I am excited to see the relevance of this project in my future studies and career, also I am grateful for the skills and knowledge that I have gained along the way.