“My Experience at ICEF Has Made Me a More Competitive Candidate for Jobs in Academia”

Francesca Macchia studies Finance at LUISS (Rome) and is in her second year of double-degree track with ICEF’s Master of Financial Economics. This year, Francesca’s paper won the third prize from HSE Student Research Paper Competition. In this interview, Francesca tells about why she chose to study in Russia, how she learned Russian, and what inspired her to choose Econometrics as a field for future PhD research.

About joining the double-degree track

As a student of LUISS, I had the opportunity to join the double-degree track with ICEF. I decided to apply because I thought my learning experience here would be a valuable add-on to my standard curriculum at LUISS. Besides, I wanted my study abroad experience to be something out of the ordinary, and it was a whole study that I did on ICEF – its curriculum, its learning process, on-campus activities, HSE in general, etc. – before I decided to come here. But, my most informative source was the double-degree students who had already experienced ICEF. They told me I’d have tough time here studying, but it only added to the excitement.

One reason why ICEF’s and LUISS’s programmes differ in terms of curriculum contents, learning structure and teaching methods, is because the ICEF’s one embraces Finance and Economics in parallel. At ICEF, students have larger amount of homework and there are multiple interim assessments, meaning that your final grade is contingent on your interim performance, whereas in Italy it’s during your final examination that your knowledge is assessed. But, despite these high requirements, I am satisfied with my performance and results.

I think my experience at ICEF has made me a more competitive candidate for jobs in academia. I am now better prepared to maintain high standards of scientific rigour

One particularly pleasant result is that I’ve made tangible progress in becoming an expert in what I love to explore most – Econometrics and Macroeconomics.

My time at ICEF has definitely influenced my academic path and career choices. It has improved my analytical thinking skills. I am now a better time manager and I think I have attained the level where I can fully meet high academic standards.

I am presently preparing for my master’s thesis defense at ICEF. Last summer I was hired as an intern at Generali Insurance – Investment Management Department, but as someone who is looking to start career in academic research, I am planning to apply for a PhD programme and am now preparing for admission.

About living in Moscow

I had no difficulty adjusting to living in Moscow. I love how warm and cordial people are at ICEF, I eased into the community quite quickly. 

Before Russia, I lived in Vietnam and Thailand. I think it is this first shock that you experience when finding yourself in a completely new environment that sets you on the path of adaptation. You start to notice every minor difference from weather to food. Your whole daily routine changes, causing some discomfort in the beginning, and the best that you can do is just go with the flow. After a couple of weeks, you’ll find yourself miraculously adjusted to your new life.

About winning in HSE Student Research Paper Competition

My research paper, which I wrote under the guidance of Professor Dean Fantazzini of LUISS, who is also an Associate Professor at ICEF, was ranked the third Best Master’s and Graduate Student Research Paper on Finance 2022. It is entitled Testing Financial Bubbles and Price Explosive Behavior in Cryptocurrency Markets and it involved the use of newly developed econometric methods to simulate performance of the cryptocurrency market bubbles. I think my paper stands out in the first place by its clear analytical approach, carefully considered structural design, consistently developed idea, and clearly presented outcomes. Econometrics has been my favorite field of research, so it was only natural for me to choose it as my research domain. Econometrics is universal. The methodologies it uses make it suitable for solving a wide range of economic or financial issues. I like how the Econometrics knowledge helps to build and test the models for investigating a variety of complex phenomena.