Bridgewater Associates, an asset management firm, has entered into a partnership with Barnard College, a highly selective liberal arts educational institution for women in New York City. The “New Pathways Powered by Bridgewater” initiative, which will unfold over six years and provide financial support for young women pursuing academic study in economics, math, statistics, and computer science, with the goal of encouraging more women to enter the investment industry.
Barnard will recruit “New Pathways Bridgewater Scholars” and will partner with Bridgewater to provide the training, exposure, and opportunities required to become workforce leaders in critical sectors of the labor market where women are underrepresented.
Mentoring support and focused engagement opportunities are planned for every phase of the scholars’ involvement in the program. Scholars will receive support for research at Barnard and for internship opportunities within the industry. Scholars will have Barnard mentors to advise both their research and applied industry engagement projects, as well as Bridgewater mentors focused on career and industry advising. Scholars will benefit from networking and industry-focused talks and workshops provided by Bridgewater.
Core benefits of being a Bridgewater Scholar include the opportunity to participate, for at least one summer following their sophomore year, in a fully-funded 10-week program of paid summer research with a faculty member in a project that uses statistical, computational, and econometric tools of data analysis. In the summer of the Bridgewater Scholars’ junior year, students will receive guaranteed funding for 10 weeks of paid internship experience, at Bridgewater or elsewhere in the industry.
Bridgewater CEO David McCormick stated that “For our industry to continue to evolve – we need the best talent to choose careers in our field. Bridgewater is proud to join with Barnard – a historically women’s college – on an initiative designed to reduce barriers and expand opportunity in investing, and we look forward to building meaningful relationships with the scholars over the coming years.”