Alumni Perspectives

Driving a career transition

At first, my unconventional background as a basketball player enrolling in an MFE program freaked me out a bit. But Berkeley—where I studied and played ball as an undergrad—is a second home to me, and the MFE Program Office was incredibly supportive. 

I’m still exploring the different paths my career could take. With my background, I’m aware that professional sports has all the finance and investment challenges of any business. I am curious about whether I can blend the two parts of my career someday. 

When I look back at the last two years, I am surprised at how much I succeeded in Questioning the Status Quo in the career transition I have made. 

Relying on teamwork

Teamwork is important in finance as much as it is in basketball. Collaboration is essential. 

At Berkeley Haas, we understood that we win or lose as a team. I often found I learned as much from my classmates as from my professors. 

Having classmates from so many different backgrounds meant we had even more varied perspectives to consider when we worked together. Exchanging ideas and approaches leads to a stronger solution.

Blending theory and practice 

My industry projects gave me practical, real-world experience to apply the theories we learned in class and demonstrate my abilities in internship interviews.

Our three-person team worked with a natural language process to read companies’ earnings reports, index them, and create a trading strategy. 

The project required us to understand the concept and use our coding skills and finance knowledge to tease out the strategy. Finally, we created and presented a report for management to consider.

Browse All Student Perspectives