Your Future In Focus: Business

hello everyone welcome and thank you so much for joining us today and of course congratulations on your admission to nyu my name is camille wilson and i work on the marketing and communications team in the division of enrollment management and i'm so excited to welcome you to our event today which is part of our your future in focus series so today's session is all about business so you will be up close and personal for a little fireside chat between a current nyu student and an alum who is currently working in the field and really our hope today is not only that you will learn a little bit more about nyu but you'll get to hear firsthand from our student from our alum about the amazing resources that nyu has and the support of our incredible staff and faculty and how that all works together to help them leverage their skills and talents to secure a future but before we dive into our conversation i did want to just share a couple of housekeeping reminders with you please note that you all will be muted throughout the duration of our event but we absolutely want to hear from you and invite you to join our conversation so if you have questions for our student for our alumni please just use the q a function on the bottom of your screen we have some staff and alumni behind the scenes that we'll answer and we may be even posing some of those questions live at the end a second reminder is that we won't cover any admissions or financial aid information today but of course if you have questions about that we are happy to help we have a ton of resources on our website you can call us you can email us we are always always happy to address any concerns that you might have so enough of me it is my pleasure to introduce you to admissions ambassador brooke fuller and our special alumni guest celine shin so ladies go ahead and take it away oh hi everyone um i guess just before we get started i'll quickly introduce myself so my name is brooke i'm a senior at the stern school of business studying finance and business econ with a minor in mathematics i'm originally from sunny orange county california um but i always say that i like to say my unparalleled sense of adventure brought me here to nyu um i'm really excited that you know as a senior i did a junior internship in banking at city and m a and i'll actually be working full-time there starting this summer so you know professionally and business-wise i've definitely had a great experience here hi i'm celine i'll be chatting with brooke today i graduated back in 2016 with a degree in neuroscience and started a career at american express after graduating i've been there now for five years and in the meantime i did go back to stern and get my mba as well so i'm actually a double nyu grad i'm happy to answer any questions you might have and i'm excited to talk to brooke moore about our journey yeah so i mean i guess i'll start so like i i'm really curious to know what made well how you made the pivot from you know more of like a sciencey you know undergrad to be working at american express and then all to get your mba too definitely so i've always been very passionate about impact and when i thought about where i could contribute the most especially in high school i always thought it was medicine or science for research so that was my intention coming into school so when i was a freshman i did a few rotations at hospitals and also continued researching and science labs and realized that it might not be the speed of impact that i was looking for so i during my sophomore year i started venturing out into where else i might be able to make impact so i did a few internships in law and business and i quickly realized this is where you can make the most impact quickly and you can make decisions and see what those results are so i was very excited by it and that's where i chose to pivot my career i chose to pivot quite early on since about sophomore year yeah wow i mean i'm you know definitely a different i guess background for that like i've always kind of known i wanted to do business i was a huge math person in high school um loved econ as well and it kind of just the perfect amalgamation of the two to me was finance um and so you know i've been at stern for past four years i've taken numerous finance courses numerous other types of business courses but um but you know i think that that nitty-gritty of like being in the room where it happens and like you said like being able to actually you know make an impact and have your what you're doing like actually matter is something that's really drawn me to the field and it's something that i felt within my internships and i know for a fact i'm going to feel full-time so i'm definitely excited about that that's great what are some of your favorite internships you try maybe before banking yeah so i actually only did one um and i did it in private wealth management at goldman sachs in los angeles um i think that the idea of you know i always knew like i said i wanted to be like in an investment bank but like where in the bank i didn't know and so to me private management was like the perfect combination of you know being client-facing and being able to like work directly with people and also like an analytical side where you know you're doing asset allocation and you're managing portfolios and especially in los angeles where like the client base is very diverse and very unique in a lot of different ways i think that that was really fun for me um i think that in terms of you know doing the internships like i kind of like you said like they're really really good to use as a judgment of what you really are interested in more and i think that it was a little bit it's something that i can imagine myself doing like in the future but i think right now as i have a lot of energy and i'm kind of like first diving into the field i think that like banking just seemed like the perfect place but i'd like to hear about you know what internships did you do in college or even outside or even you know within your invader program to get to where you are that's a great question so i as i mentioned i consider all different types of ways i can make impact i was interested in law for a while i was like i could be a lawyer and do pro bono projects and i also was interested in science research so i was conducting research at a lab in neuroscience at nyu so i tried all different things but the first internship that really hit it for me was an internship at a hedge fund i checked out my sophomore year and i got through nyu through the wasserman center i had just applied and that really was a great fit for me it was a very small hedge fund so i got more one-on-one attention especially since i wasn't a full-time business student it really gave me a lot of exposure to the different parts of working in finance and the different functions you might be able to do like operations versus investment management and all that so that really changed my mind and that was one of my favorite internships did you also go through wasserman to get your internships or yeah so i used wasserman for my junior internship my sophomore internship was actually like kind of a luck of the draw thing i just went on the website applied and somehow they liked my higher view and that worked out but in terms of my junior internship which is like a really big thing at stern to recruit for you to actually recruit for that your sophomore spring um i definitely used wasserman i would check the emails every single week to see what firms were coming in to do firmware events like um you know they had a lot of resume workshops they had you know different like people you could talk to to like look it up like do mock interviews or whatever it was um but really i use them mostly for like those firmwares and getting to get those connections with people at banks to like then reach out and start networking um i think that you know having that so close and having like that i guess ease of access to all of that was super helpful and then not to mention right we're in new york city like when the banks come to talk to you they're not coming from far they're just taking the subway up a little bit to like come see us which is super nice because even if they were in a rush they'd be like listen i gotta go back but here's my email we'll talk some other time reach out to me and you can come down and actually like meet me in person for like a coffee chat so it was super helpful um to use them with all of you know all of their resources that they had and so it's cool to see that like that's still something that they did you know um back you know not back then you're not at all but like you're not that old but like it's you know it's been something that they continue to do which is really cool definitely and it's been fun to be on both sides of it since i'm on the recruiting team now for amex and i love meeting nyu students and now you'll be on that other side too what do you think are some of the best resources you have besides wasserman and networking with alumni were you involved any quads or extracurriculars yeah absolutely so actually when i joined my friend my first year i actually joined a club at stern called the investment analysis group and it was basically my first intro to anything finance it was you know learning to model learning about like how to value a company all those different things and they had a really cool like i guess connection with like seniors like the seniors already that had done internships and whatnot like we were able to use them as resources and have them you know if they have an internship they pass it down to the freshmen or the sophomores or whatever it was i'm in the same with my i'm actually in a business fraternity called epikappasai um we're actually alpha chapter here at nyu which is really exciting um and that especially we have so many alumni that you know we could reach out to for help with recruiting our seniors and juniors like really really helped us with like learning technicals mock interviewing everything i think stern itself has a really really solid like support base for when you start going through that and like even now i'm actually a peer mentor um as a senior and so i actually mock interview and help sophomores recruiting right now currently i just got off a call like about an hour ago with somebody um so you know there's definitely like i think stern in particular does a really good job at you know preparing you for like that finance internship the recruiting part um what about you what clubs were you involved in when you were here yeah definitely so it's funny i can relate to your stern experiences since i was the mba program mirrors a lot of extracurriculars so i know we were both in stern women in business but for example when i went through recruiting during my mba program um a lot of the consulting networking groups that we have at stern dedicated to the students we would do all the mock case studies and interviews ourselves too and have like a whole spreadsheet of who's available one so we can meet up and pair up and practice interviewing so i can relate to that completely back when i was an undergrad which i know was not too long ago but i was very focused on leadership positions around my major so i was the president of the nyu psychology association and also helped leadership roles in the neuroscience society but i was mostly driven to those opportunities because of the community impact a lot of the fraternities sororities and extracurriculars at nyu try to focus on making an impact within new york city so i loved those volunteer opportunities i found those to be most present in extracurriculars what about yourself um yeah no i mean same like i think that in terms of like all of nyu i was definitely i was a part of i'm a part of a zeta alpha as well social sorority and i always liked what we did for like think pink and whatnot um and then just like all i have like being an admissions ambassador too has been such a fulfilling experience and i've you know loved my four years doing it but um i guess yeah like during your time here at nyu were you able to find like that mentorship and support system like through professors or through washington or through like kind of clubs or anything like that i wish i leaned on my professors a bit more at the time i didn't as much as i did when i went back and got my mba but i think i found the most value of reaching out to alumni companies that i was interested in working at or had similar backgrounds to me where they might have studied them but then pivoted it into business i would just reach out to them and they would be more than happy to chat and it's a cycle you give back once you're in the position of working full-time and a student reaches out to you it's hard to say no i never do so i i think it's just like a cycle i keep going and even now when i'm i am like there's a huge nyu network we have a whole alumni group and there are executives who went to oiu as well so reaching out to them i have no problem um making a connection that way so it really is very full circle and i think that having that bond is very special yeah and i think that's actually truly something that i've i've seen too i mean from like i said when i was recruiting reaching out to not only nyu alumni but also like aksai alumni or stern alumni right like if you put that in your subject line it was amazing how much of a higher response rate you got just because of like you're reaching out and they're like oh i remember i was there and i think that even starting next year right i mean it'll be happening to me too i don't even know what i'm like it's crazy to think about that how time flies but it really is like i'm i'm like you like i want to respond to every email i want to give back as much as i can because of the support that i got from our alumni as well which is really exciting um and so i guess with your first you know job working at american express like how was that you know right out of college like what is the transition like from being a student to being a working professional i think it's interesting how in college and like throughout your entire educational career i guess you are solely focused on grades and grades are determined by merits but once you enter the workforce it's not just merit and how good you're doing your work but it's also people leadership skills and management skills and learning to flex those and working through a large organization and understanding how an organizational structure works so i think culture is very important and a lot of the times you choose to work at a company because of cultural fit so just spending like the first three or six months of learning what the org structure looks like and getting involved in the extracurriculars you want is very important when you first enter a company i feel like it's hard to show that you're a people leader and you want to grow at the company one day it's actually relatively easy because you can show that you are going to become a people leader one day by joining the recruiting team at city and going back to hire more nyu students you could also join like the women's interest network and co-lead an event there and just doing things like that show that you want to provide value to the firm and the company and also that you're willing to take leadership roles so i think it's almost like college but in a different setting since thing called you're doing the same things you're an ambassador you're joining a lot of different extracurriculars and showing that you have leadership skills it's just translating that over to a new environment yeah no and thank you i mean obviously it's exciting to think that it's happening so soon um but i i know like especially at city like we have a huge nyu recruiting alumni network like i think that they even told us when we had like a special event just for us like we love nyu students we're gonna pull for you guys every single year like it's such a cool thing i guess a support system in that way to have and it is daunting right like going from college where you have so much free time and you're taking these you know just classes and tests like that work to like actually doing you know a full five six day seven maybe work week you know with all like much more hours and all of that um but you know obviously with covet and stuff it's going to be very interesting because we already heard that we're going to be starting online and so you know as much as it's it's you know weird makes sense but like really you know uncertain like do you have any advice i guess for me starting you know to like stand out in that way like all the ways you mentioned but you know in a virtual setting at least for a few months uh to get started mm-hmm i think setting up virtual coffee chat is great i also think that if possible turn on your camera as much as you can just so people can tie a name to your face and i know city has like no video fridays definitely take advantage of that make sure to take care of yourself i know it's like a huge change i remember the first couple of weeks i was working i was so tired after every day because you don't realize how much mental nature goes into working full-time while at school you might have classes two days a week and you might like load it so that you have time to do other things but you can't do that at work so i would just say focus on taking care of yourself getting enough sleep i know it might be hard at first but it'll be great i promise thank you but i guess also my another like fun question is like how has it been working as being a working professional in new york city like i think that that's one of the biggest pulls to me was part of nyu was that it's in the city like i got to experience it before you know i'm going into finance here like how is that like actually working in this crazy you know big apple city that everyone you know hears about thinks about like the financial capital of north america essentially i think it's so great there are so many networking opportunities a lot of the women's employee resource groups across the city are all in discussions with each other and sometimes we'll host events together so there are definitely networking opportunities and because a lot of the offices are clustered in certain areas like women's taxes across the street from us city is actually like down the street from us if you walk like five minutes the ny melons also in our building so i feel like during lunch breaks and happy hours you just meet people and you get to network and find friends that you can lean on outside of your company that you might not necessarily um you can be more transparent with them because they're not at your company so it's great to never breaking that thumbs through and they can relate to everything you're going through so it's great right yeah i mean i i'm so excited to like actually yeah that's so funny i will be working like a ten minute walk or five minute walk from you um that's insane um i this is you know maybe just a question for me but like how is commuting how is the commuting life here in new york city yeah so it's funny because the past year i haven't touched you and i probably won't have to for another six months at least um so at first when i was commuting it wasn't terrible i think that like commute and in the morning is more chaotic than leaving because you can leave whenever you want or if you're leaving late at night but you can take a car home so it's not sad but i think that a lot of people are now transitioning to moving to the suburbs or potentially relocating entirely and working remotely so i can see commuting changing when we do all return back to the office it's like going to be such a first time because when i lived in l.a and i worked the my internship there obviously you drive and everyone has a car and so here i'm like so nervous to take like you sweating on the subway or whatever it is in your suit like i've seen people do but you know it's all exciting and i really can't wait for it to happen for the first time um so i guess yeah i think we're you know about to wrap up so i guess you can both you know if you have any advice to like obviously our attendees who might be wanting to you know come to nyu about you know business here and whatever it is um we can both kind of answer that that sounds good um my personal regret was that i haven't taken advantage of when i was at nyu was studying abroad so i highly encourage you to take the opportunity if you can you won't have another time in your life where you might have at least three to six months to be in a different country so i would definitely take advantage of that and also just be open to new opportunities you might go in having one idea of what your major or your career path might be but career paths are never straight and everything changes so quickly like the panda and i completely changed everything the past year so just be open and flexible yeah no and i totally agree i think that you know so many people come into an undergrad especially that i've met like i had this one my mindset of like oh i'm doing you know finance or die or like i'm doing absolutely doing this or i'm absolutely doing that and it's amazing like i think that part of stearns you know core curriculum is you take core business curriculum is that you take a bunch of different business classes in a bunch of different industries and so you can actually kind of see what you like and i had a friend that i know was diehard tech everything that's going to be tech and then they took a marketing class and was like wait a minute this is fantastic this is like what i like to do and even you know organizational management or any of those classes like all very different elements of business and so i think that definitely the open mind thing is very incredible like i think that's a very important thing to do but i think that in terms of you know nyu being like nyu and stern and even in like my friends in cs or other schools that are you know going into business like i think that we have such a good foundation to set you up for success and i think that the one thing that i always tell my kids it's stern um when i'm like at a peer mentor talking to sophomores and freshmen that like you know you will find a job there like based off of numbers based off of history like you will find a job you will get to do what you want to do figuring that out is like on you to like explore and you know these keep searching so i encourage like all of you to keep you know explore and keep searching and keep developing that because you don't have to know what you want to do at 18 but by the time you know you get to be a senior like me like i feel like i've truly got the experience to like try out everything and see what i like the most and i can be really confident and like assured that what i'm going to do is like what i'm most excited for so yeah amazing that was awesome i loved being a fly on the wall for this conversation that was so incredible um and i think one thing i love is that both of you talked so much about paying it forward and how there were so many people at nyu who helped you alumni who kind of reach back to pull you up because i feel like sometimes in the business world people have this perception of it being like super cutthroat and so competitive but the fact that both of you had similar experiences with people really lifting you up and that you're both doing it for others i think is just a testament to the community that nyu has and like how it's a different environment even though it's still business level of love um so we have a couple of questions that came in from our audience as y'all were chatting um so first one is for celine from shigea hopefully i'm saying that right um who's curious about your time pursuing your mba um did you work while you did did you not work uh do you have any advice for people who are curious about pursuing an mba and what it's like to maybe juggle both at the same time definitely so there are three different traditional mba programs you can get an executive mba which is typically a weekend a part-time mba which is the route i took where i worked full-time and then went to school part-time during the night where on weekends you have flexibility and then of course the traditional full-time program where you go for two years and you don't work during that time i chose to go part-time because i was at a point in my career where if i had quit my job and went back into the same industry i would actually be behind so i chose to go part-time for that reason since i wanted to continue my career trajectory but it was important to me personally to get an mba so it really depends i think if you are someone who graduates college and you enter a field that you might not have thought it might be or you want to eventually transition and a full-time program is better because it's more built for you to try different things go through internships again and pivot industries or careers so it's really a personal choice i love that what i'm hearing you say is that there are options and it really just depends on what's going to work best for you i think that's really the the best advice to give and then another question for both of you um do you have any advice on uh how to juggle all of the things right because at nyu of course you're here to go to school but then there are also these internships these amazing student clubs extracurriculars like you know in your experience how are you able to balance it all because both of you seem to be super involved during your time i love brooke oh since she's currently in it and she's juggled so much thank you i mean you did too but i think that you know going into it the first year you you get so excited and you want to join everything and you get there and all of a sudden you're like wait there's only 24 hours in a day but it's possible to like do the things that you really want to you know just really like i think that early on i learned time management and just okay you know i have to block out this many hours for homework i have to block out this many many hours for this but then i can also add in the things that i really want to do and you know recruiting for internships i was of the mind that i didn't want to do an internship during the school year just because i wanted to be involved in so many other things so that was like a choice that i made that i just do summers but other people do opposites right some people would rather not be in clubs they just want to do working or they maybe they don't you know they have classes like only on you know like kind of like celine said you know monday wednesday and then thursday friday saturday they do you know whatever it is they do um so it's definitely possible i think it really is just figuring out the things that you want to do making sure that there isn't enough hours today for it to get done and like you know fully going for it i think that you know it's a trial and error thing it really did take a little bit to get to the point where i'm like okay i'm solid in my like free time versus work time versus studying like and it's something that you really learn i think that you know going to nyu in particular like helped me grow and develop because of that um so it is possible i promise you right a little bit of work to get there but it happens and it's really awesome i completely agree with brooke and it's also being self-aware i know you mentioned recruiting like for example when i was recruiting during my mba program i only took one class last semester since i knew recruiting would suck up most of my time but then the next semester i loaded up on classes beyond the limit so i think it's just being self-aware of knowing what is important to you like brooke mentioned and then also planning out ahead yes planning ahead is very important yeah i love that advice because i think you know there are a lot of options but you can try a couple of things your first year your first semester switch around like there's so many ways to fit it all in and i think you both have some great insight on doing doing just that um so two more questions so maya is asking what is something that you wish you took more seriously when you were at nyu for you celine and brooke you know looking back on your previous few years and then on the flip side what is something that you wish you didn't stress so much about and i love this question so much so if you need to take a second to think about it go for it so in my opinion i wish i leveraged more relationships with my professors i did more of that during my mba but when i was an undergrad i think i took it for granted i was more focused on sitting in all the classes and making sure i got good grades but you should reach out to your professors they're humans and they have so much insight and knowledge a lot of them have worked in industries in the past a lot of them are founders and entrepreneurs and they have a lot to offer you so i would not treat them as just someone standing up there lecturing but as a human being who is more than open to being friends with you and giving you advice and helping you shape your career too yeah no i actually totally agree i think that the one thing looking back i wish i would have focused more on was like using professors and i think that in you know at stern we're really lucky to have some amazing amazing professors like you know some of them that are talked about throughout the entire finance industry in new york city right and so taking their classes was you know amazing and very fulfilling and great classes but i don't think i took the steps necessary to really like you know meet them and actually get to know them and like use them as resources in the way that i think a lot of others might have um but in terms of focusing too much i think you know stressing too much about that initial when you start recruiting and getting a job and being afraid like i'm never you know that that thought i'm never going to get a job and but it it works out like everybody does get a job right like you can go out that thursday night to dinner with your friend i promise you that's not the difference between you getting a job and not right like those just like you know taking a deep breath and realizing like what it actually takes versus the stress and like getting clouded i think that that was definitely something i wish i focused a little bit less on when i was like you know especially recruiting as a sophomore but it once again it's like a trial and error thing once you realize it's happening then you can start working on it but until then you know it's just oh my gosh i have so much to do but you know it all got done so all's all the time i love that i feel like you guys are speaking to me with the advice that you're giving today um okay and then our last question before we wrap everything up um someone from our audience complimented you and said you both are so well spoken and in thankful and they just were wondering what initially attracted you to nyu and what really stood out about this particular university when you were weighing all your other options i mean i guess i can start so i knew i wanted to go to business school 100 and i knew i wanted to go to a school in or near a city i'm a very metropolitan person like i like boss hustle and bustle of everyday life i like seeing a lot of people like i know i couldn't do a role thing and i you know what business was my focus um like you know looking at all the i guess options nyu really stuck out to me because like i said i was i knew i liked finance i knew that's what i was interested in and if you're gonna do it this is the place like this is really where you know that's where i would probably end up working anyway but like to get a head start and to get you know acclimated to living here to be able to chat people like other at other you know banks or other places throughout the year like having those speakers that we did it it was just i felt i would get the best experience um in like doing so and coming here on top of that a lot of other universities in terms of business school right you don't get accepted into the business school you have to reapply to it and that you know may not be a very high acceptance rate so it's like applying to college all over again and that was the last thing i wanted to do is worry about you know getting into college and i'm already there and so you know being able to be admitted into stern as a first year student having a four-year curriculum that's like very heavily just business focused what you want to do not taking having to take all these classes that have nothing to do with what you know your focus is like those were all such huge drivers to me and i think that i truthfully got the best business and finance education i could have um especially you know being in new york and just the way that the curriculum set up so for me i just wanted to be somewhere that was very innovative culturally and also just meeting like-minded individuals who are just so passionate about what they want to do like everyone at nyu whether it's acting or business or becoming a doctor they're just so passionate about their goals and i wanted to surround myself in better environments and also and people at my are just so creative and that's not part of what attracted me to it as well some of the biggest companies haven't founded there like twitter jack dorsey was at nyu when he made that he was i know pinterest was involved with stern at a point too same with audible brooklyn so many companies were founded by my entrepreneurs and alumni so that's part of what i was interested in as well i love it nyu just has all the things and i literally get answers i literally i'm like why didn't i go to nyu it's making me want to go back a little bit but that's all the questions that we have time for today i did want to just say a special thank you to brooke and celine that was amazing conversation and i think your advice and insight was much appreciated by everyone in our audience so thank you thank you thank you um i hope everyone enjoyed our session today and had a chance to learn about nyu and some of the things that you can look forward to as a student here uh just a quick plug for our next event in the series it's actually happening this saturday april 17th at noon eastern time we're going to be chatting with an alumni about their journey from nyu to the field of education so hopefully you can join us for that one as well until then we encourage you to check out all of our offerings on nyu home base where you can find some additional info about our upcoming events and make sure that you follow us on social media at the nyu on all platforms for even more updates so with that thank you all again so much for attending congratulations and have a great day thank you so much

2021-05-07 17:37

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