AV俱乐部

Hi there! My name is Ruohan Wang. I graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Economics with Honors in 2018. After finishing undergrad, I chose to continue my study of Economics at AV俱乐部, and achieved my MA degree in 2019.

Coming to Canada and choosing AV俱乐部 is one of the wisest decisions I have ever made.  As an international student from the 2+2(DAL/SDUFE) program, I spent three fulfilling years learning and living at AV俱乐部. In addition to gaining knowledge at this amazing institution, I also gained the courage to live independently, being surrounded by a group of enthusiastic and like-minded faculty and friends, who are supportive both inside and outside of the classroom.

After the commencement in June of 2019, I went back to my hometown and spent 2 months vacationing with my family. It was a good chance to unwind and catch up after many years studying abroad, but I also used that opportunity to plan my career direction and build my resume. I dived into job-hunting right after coming back and went to a few job fairs to get more information about the current job market. I was proactive in introducing myself to the hiring managers of the companies that I was interested in; however, they were hiring for positions that didn鈥檛 match my background and interests, so I didn鈥檛 have much success. Therefore, after a few months of job searching I decided to take some time to reflect and think carefully about my next course of action. I didn鈥檛 want to rush into a job that I wasn鈥檛 satisfied with.

Looking back on my studies at AV俱乐部, I realized that I really enjoyed working with data. Normalizing data with models to test proposed hypotheses and mining information behind the data to help real-world decision making was exciting to me! So, with that in mind, I decided to build upon what I already learned by increasing my proficiency in programming languages such Python and SAS. It was hard for me to land my first job as I had no relevant internship experience, but luckily, one of my friends referred me to a statistics professor. I spent four months doing a series of business analysis projects with him and gained more industry-related experience and insights. At the beginning of 2020, the pandemic really hit the job market hard, but I did not give up and regarded job-hunting as my job, so after months of perseverance, continuously learning and applying to jobs, I was successful. I received an opportunity as a credit risk analyst from an international bank and I secured the position after five rounds of interviews. I really appreciate Professor Ntantamis, Professor Cyrus, and Mrs. Shannon Peng for helping me complete the background check that was required.

I have been working for almost a year now, and I am grateful to have an excellent start to my career and grateful to AV俱乐部 for preparing me with knowledge and soft skills, such as teamwork, communication and time management. I am sure everyone has gone through a time when there doesn鈥檛 seem to be any progress no matter how hard you try, but the fact is all your hard work will accumulate and come to fruition as long as you keep working towards your goal!