Creativity And Student Interest In The Profession Of Finance

The discipline of finance has been perceived as structured and highly precision-oriented, which discourages creative individuals to pursue a career in finance. The objective of this study is to examine how students' creativity interacts with their perception of the nature of the finance profession. The subjects are students in a principles of finance course. Based on the beginning- and the end-of-the-semester surveys, we find that the interactions of student creativity and their views on finance as a factual and structured profession are negatively related to the students' perceived interest in finance as a profession. The findings are more profound for the end-of-the-semester survey. To mitigate these effects, professors may consider re-focusing a finance course on topics that are more innovative and more dynamic instead of emphasizing facts and structures. They can also use innovative methods in teaching to make finance more interesting and appealing to creative students.