Faculty Testimonials

I found the students in my EDHEC course to be exceptionally motivated and talented. This is not surprising: the same traits that make one successful in industry, an eagerness to know more and the ability to absorb complicated ideas, are the same traits that lead to successful scholars. 

Professional PhD students bring a lot of relevant experience to the class room.  Many students have a good understanding of the scope and limitations of the material taught. The interaction with these students is a very enriching experience for professors and I hope the same holds true for students.  

Teaching the EDHEC PhD students has been a real pleasure because they come with a wealth of professional experience that makes them a particularly deep and perceptive cohort of students. They immediately understand why a result is important, and they can see the connection between theory, measurement and financial reality straight away. Working with them is truly a give-and-take process.

I was amazed to see how many top scholars from around the world were teaching in it. And, I was also very impressed by the students in this programme, many of whom are very senior executives at top financial institutions and corporations.

Motivation is palpable in the classroom – this is not a quiet crowd, participants are very good at giving feedback and challenging the instructor to identify the tools needed to address the issues they feel strongly about, whether these are issues they face in their work, dissertation work or both – it is exactly the type of interaction that you hope for as an instructor and researcher.

The Dissertation Proposal aims to identify a research topic that will be the foundation of the student thesis. After a first year focused on learning fundamentals through lectures, doing assignments and taking exams, the student has to change mindset and think about an original research topic where he would like to contribute to the advancement of knowledge.

Doctoral training provides you with knowledge and a set of tools which can be used in the industry. For example, we all read about the complex derivative products at the heart of the current financial crisis—it is useful for professionals in the finance industry to understand what models were used to price and manage these products and what went wrong

Teaching an elective course like this is an enticing opportunity to talk about your research and focus on things that you really care about. This is quite unusual, even at the doctoral level. I have been researching this area for over ten years and this provides a great opportunity to organise my thoughts on the topic and present them in a unified way.

At Duke, I teach in both executive education and doctoral programmes. Here the students are a nice mix of the two as they had both a great academic interest in finance and real experience from the field – this was perfect for me since I strive to do academic research that is in sync with the industry

I was much impressed with what EDHEC-Risk Institute had been able to accomplish in less than ten years’ time. The concept of a doctoral program opened to executives was novel and very interesting and I wanted to find out what type of profiles students would have. I thus accepted Professor Garcia’s invitation and am glad I had this opportunity to teach in the program

The second difference has to do with the very nature of the student population. It has been an absolute pleasure teaching students with a broad range of professional experiences and achievements.