The Fast Track to the Trading Floor Runs Through a Texas Public University
The energy boom has helped give students in a specialized program at Texas A&M a leg up on lucrative finance jobs.
When TotalEnergies SE promoted Sophie Schultz last summer to become an asset trader at age 25, it wasn’t the first time she’d gained the French company’s vote of confidence. Total’s North American gas and power unit—plus dozens of other energy heavyweights—had unanimously voted almost five years earlier to greenlight her application to a Texas academic program that’s rapidly becoming one of the fastest routes to energy trading.
Texas A&M University’s Trading, Risk and Investments Program, or TRIP, graduated its first class of 12 in 2011, and more than 200 students have since gone through it. In that time, the program in College Station, Texas, has gained a reputation for churning out some of the energy industry’s most coveted first-year analysts.