For Kyle Pietila, formerly a Deliveries and FX Settlement Analyst for the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME), the Illinois MBA became a top choice as soon as he reviewed the courses offered within the finance concentration: “Illinois offered the exact courses that I knew were going to advance my career in investment banking, and I couldn’t find any other program that compared in its course offerings.”

Kyle was responsible for mitigating risk exposure in the delivery of derivatives and commodity products that were traded on the CME, and he observed first-hand how many credit rating agencies were failing to provide reliable evaluations of securities to investors. For this reason, he knew a strong financial education at Illinois would give him the credentials and, more importantly, the knowledge to protect his future clients from potential risk in the financial markets.

Although Kyle looks forward to taking these finance courses, he is just a few weeks into his first-year foundational courses. So far, he has found the curriculum to be extremely demanding and challenging, but he is excited to see that the professors are “very personal and engage constructive classroom discussions.” When asked what has been his favorite aspect of the Illinois MBA so far, Kyle responded that he enjoys interacting with students from all over the world and learning to work in groups with them: “It’s been a wonderful experience learning how to leverage the experiences of my diverse classmates in our team assignments.”

Beyond the classroom, Kyle enjoys being on a large campus that has maintained its historical appeal through its buildings: “I enjoy walking around and looking at the buildings that could appear in a movie – the brick and ivy is beautiful.”

When Kyle is not studying or working, he enjoys traveling. Because he has an older brother who was adopted from Bosnia, Kyle has had the opportunity to travel to Sarajevo and meet his brother’s mother. Perhaps it is this cultural exposure that feeds Kyle’s enthusiasm for meeting many of his classmates who came to the University of Illinois from around the world. Certainly, Kyle’s classmates will appreciate his eagerness to share in their triumphs and struggles – both in the Illinois MBA and in their future careers.