Bloomberg terminals installed by the business program in Mercer’s Business Building in June 2025, became a required component in certain business courses this semester. The terminals also give students access to industry-standard data and certification opportunities.
The terminals, which are Mercer PCs with Bloomberg’s software programs downloaded on them, give students access to a database of information about business markets and companies.
Dean for Business, Technology and Professional Studies Dr. Laura Sosa, who spearheaded the project said, “This has kind of been a vision of mine for a long time to have these terminals because it makes us better prepare our students for when they transfer.”
Mercer is one of several community colleges in New Jersey, such as Brookdale CC, Union College, Bergen CC and Essex CCC, to establish these Terminals for their Business oriented students.
Mercer was awarded the federal Perkins Grant for the development of career and technical education (CTE) programs, covering the cost of purchase and installation of the terminals.
Rubana Syed, program coordinator for business administration. She said, “Trying to go through the process was all Denise Ratti [Mercer’s grants director]. She took care of all the back and forth with the vendor and the contracts and all of that. It took…about a year and a half for everything to be approved.”
Although students do not pay to use the terminals, Dr. Sosa said access is limited primarily to career and technical education students. Ratti wrote in an email, “We rent the two terminals for just over $28,300 each per year or $56,600 total.”
Students have raised concerns about fairness of budgeting distribution for other departments at the college. Pippa Kleijer, a first year Criminal Justice Major said, “I think Mercer spends a lot of money on certain majors and some majors are kind of left behind, I think maybe it’s not fair.”
When the terminals were first introduced in the Fall of 2025, Dr. Sosa said, “I’ll be honest, the traffic was slow in the fall.… Because students really didn’t know what it was.”
Since the start of this semester, Lisa Minieri, CTE specialist at Mercer, reports an average of two to three students using the terminals every day.
Students can access the Bloomberg terminals by scheduling an appointment through a QR code system, found on Lisa Minieri’s office door.
Sessions are typically booked in one-hour time slots to regulate use, though students may stay longer if no one is waiting. Dr. Sosa said she hopes to expand from two terminals to a full lab with twelve.
Minieri, as a CTE specialist, monitors and controls students’ access to the terminals. She said, “I basically keep track. I’m the point of contact when they [students] are actually here.”
Because the terminals are still relatively new, business professors are continuing to spread the word so more students become aware of them.
“They get a certificate of completion, a digital batch that they can upload into LinkedIn, and they can add to their resume”, Syed said.
Two areas in which certificates can be obtained include Bloomberg Finance Fundamentals and Bloomberg Market Concepts. These can be earned within three to five hours of self-paced work.
Sanskruti Joshi, a second-year Business Administration major, said she thinks community college students already face a lot of disadvantages in the transfer process.
“Having something reputable and relatively easy to obtain gives us something worthwhile to put on our resume,” Joshi said.
