{"id":7669,"date":"2016-02-05T05:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-02-05T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/business.cornell.edu\/centers\/2016\/02\/05\/what-i-didn-t-know-before-my-corporate-finance-immersion\/"},"modified":"2026-07-14T18:17:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-14T18:17:08","slug":"what-i-didn-t-know-before-my-corporate-finance-immersion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/business.cornell.edu\/centers\/2016\/02\/05\/what-i-didn-t-know-before-my-corporate-finance-immersion\/","title":{"rendered":"What I Didn\u2019t Know Before My Corporate Finance Immersion"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head>\n<\/head><body><h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">by Shiril Sunil Nikhar, MBA &lsquo;17<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignleft size-full\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/business.cornell.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2026\/06\/Nikhar-Shiril.jpg\" alt=\"Shiril Sunil Nikhar, MBA &lsquo;17\" class=\"wp-image-18946\"><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The beginning of Johnson&rsquo;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.johnson.cornell.edu\/programs\/full-time-mba\/two-year-mba\/curriculum\/immersion-learning\/corporate-finance\/\" class=\"external\">Corporate Finance Immersion<\/a> (CFI)for the Class of 2017 MBA candidates was a boot camp led by <a href=\"https:\/\/pillarsofwallstreet.com\/about-us\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"external\">Matthew Holaves<\/a>, co-founder and managing director of <a href=\"https:\/\/pillarsofwallstreet.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" class=\"external\">Pillars of Wall Street<\/a>, in conjunction with Jack Ferrer, MBA &rsquo;07, visiting lecturer of Finance. Ferrer, a well-known industry figure, brings real-life examples to his teaching that are incredibly valuable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After studying both finance and accounting as core courses during the fall semester, most of us thought we had a broader sense of &ldquo;numbers&rdquo; in the business world. In many aspects our perceptions were true; however, Holaves helped us realize that we have only been exposed to the tip of the iceberg. The week started with simple modeling, enthusiastic faces, and an air of curiosity. Every person in the room consciously chose to enroll in the CFI and is genuinely interested in the concepts. It felt great to be surrounded by people who were fascinated by the same domain. The various reasons each individual joined this particular immersion definitely provided additional depth and understanding about my classmates. Despite being financial field novices, most students thoroughly enjoyed the first week, learned more than expected, and are excited for the remainder of the course. I am grateful to be a part of the MFI experience.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by Shiril Sunil Nikhar, MBA &lsquo;17 The beginning of Johnson&rsquo;s Corporate Finance Immersion (CFI)for the Class of 2017 MBA candidates was a boot camp led by Matthew Holaves, co-founder and&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":7670,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[161],"tags":[199,200,180],"ppma_author":[],"class_list":["post-7669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog-posts","tag-graduate-student","tag-immersions","tag-two-year-mba"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.9 (Yoast SEO v27.9) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>What I Didn\u2019t Know Before My Corporate Finance Immersion - Cornell Business Centers &amp; Institutes<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"by Shiril Sunil Nikhar, MBA \u201817 The beginning of Johnson\u2019s Corporate Finance Immersion (CFI)for the Class of 2017 MBA candidates was a boot camp led by\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/business.cornell.edu\/centers\/2016\/02\/05\/what-i-didn-t-know-before-my-corporate-finance-immersion\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"What I Didn\u2019t Know Before My Corporate Finance Immersion - Cornell Business\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"by Shiril Sunil Nikhar, MBA \u201817 The beginning of Johnson\u2019s Corporate Finance Immersion (CFI)for the Class of 2017 MBA candidates was a boot camp led by\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/business.cornell.edu\/centers\/2016\/02\/05\/what-i-didn-t-know-before-my-corporate-finance-immersion\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Centers &amp; 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