Blog #1

My name is Yingyi He. I am currently majoring in quantitative methods and modeling at Baruch College. Simply speaking, the major combines the statistics with the computer modeling. My career goal is to be a data analyst in a big company’s marketing department; or be a professional quantitative analyst in financial field, such as investment bank, insurance company, etc. I had a solid foundation in engineering, and combined with the knowledge gained as a QMM major, I am confident to say that I will be able to do quite well in this field. However, except the professional knowledge, I believe that the technique of business communication is also very important. As a senior quantitative analyst, skills in written communication, business meeting, presentation, and conference call are definitely necessary in daily work. Otherwise, a senior analyst should also be good at explaining the analysis report to the clients, who has no professional knowledge in the statistical field, by using the plain English.
Honestly, I have a good command of communication skills in my native language. When I worked in a company’s marketing department in China, I accumulated a lot of face-to-fact communication experience with customers and clients. And I was very confident to show my ideas in the meeting and to speak in the public. However, after I came to the U.S, it is totally a different story. Since I have only been in U.S. for one year and a half, I have to say that both of my written and oral English are in a relatively low level. Sometimes I still have difficulties in listening, and for most of the time, it is hard to express my opinion hundred percent accurately, which really makes me feel nervous and frustrating. As a result, I become more and more unwilling to do the group discussion and presentation.
In order to fulfill my career goal, I have to improve the communication skills as soon as possible. First of all, I should develop effective listening skills. Listen to the other person’s words and engage in communication on what the other people is speaking about. Secondly, I should read as many articles as I can, which may help me to accumulate more vocabularies and phrases. Third, be courage to say what I think and say it loudly. Even if the pronunciation is not correct enough or the word chosen is not perfectly accurate, just be confident to express my opinion in the public. And be confident in knowing that I can make worthwhile contributions to group works.