My name is Alan I was a former U.S. Marine specifically I was a grunt the ones who do the initial fighting I have been deployed to Afghanistan for 7 months in 2009. Today I go to Baruch and my major is Statistics and Quantitative Modeling with a minor is Business Writing, I have no prior journalism experience but I consider myself a news junkie. I am a lower senior with 2 more semesters left.  I work for the New York City Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications downtown. I work at 311 which was created by Mayor Bloomberg back in 2003. I am very interested and passionate about global affairs specifically emerging markets, regional conflicts, and newly established Start-ups. In the future I would like to pursue a career in either a technology related area or would like to write financial related articles exposing corruption, fraud, and deceptive practices used frequently by the Financial Industry. I have taken several business classes at Baruch and know how to use the Baruch Database very well. The use of Factivia will be very beneficial to this class and I have plenty of experience using it. I like to follow news sources outside this country to get a better understanding and get a deeper knowledge of the outside world. My favorite business sources for information is sites like The Economist, The Financial Times and Reuters.