Paul Wong

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2007 Professor Harry Simons Endowed Undergraduate Scholarship for the Study of Accounting Recipient

Biography: Born in on August 24th, 1986, Paul Evan Wong spent his formative years growing up in Alameda, California. In 2004, Paul moved to Los Angeles upon successful matriculation to the University of California at Los Angeles. Now entering his fourth year, Paul is currently pursuing a major in Business Economics and a minor in Accounting. In addition to his primary major, Paul is also seeking a second major in History as a means of broadening his education. Considering universal academic pursuit a life-long interest and goal, Paul enjoys many other academic disciplines, including Political Science, Psychology, and Astronomy among others. Prior to attending UCLA, Paul completed high school, graduating cum laude, at the Head-Royce School in Oakland, California.

Future Plans: This fall, Paul will begin his fourth year at UCLA. Academically, Paul hopes to begin an honors thesis in economics and complete the necessary courses in accounting in order to be eligible for a CPA upon graduation. Through his remaining course work, he hopes to gain an international perspective on business and economics. In June 2008, Paul intends to graduate with a bachelor’s degree in Business Economics from UCLA. During the year, Paul will also continue his search for a job upon graduation. He hopes to gain a few years of valuable work experience to begin his career before attending business school. Completing business school, he aspires to work as a financial consultant within the hi-tech industry. Ultimately, Paul’s hope is someday run his own computer company, which provides affordable products to low-to-middle income households in a progressive eco-friendly manner.

What does the scholarship mean to me?: The Professor Harry Simons Endowed Undergraduate Scholarship means very much to me, and it shall provide me with numerous opportunities that are invaluable to my growth, both as an academician and as a person. Without such a scholarship, I would be hard pressed to participate in the Economic Departmental Honors Program. The aid that the scholarship provides, has allowed me to go to focus on my studies much more intensively. Also, such assistance will allow me to search for an ideal place to being my career upon graduation from UCLA. Lastly, this scholarship will allow me to participate as a student-athlete during the winter on the UCLA Ski Team. All in all, the generosity of the benefactors of the Professor Harry Simons Endowed Undergraduate Scholarship has made these invaluable experiences possible. To them, and the Department of Economics at UCLA, I am grateful.

Liwen Tsai

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2007 The Howard J. and Mitzi W. Green Scholarship Recipient

Biography: A fourth-year Business Economics major and Accounting minor, Liwen Tsai was born in Southern California, but spent four years of her childhood in Taiwan, where she became fluent and literate in Mandarin Chinese. Her previous travel experiences to different parts of Asia also helped to develop her career interests in the global economy to engage herself in both business and cultural exchanges with Pacific-rim countries. As a result, she also minors in Chinese as an extension of her interests in Asian languages and cultures. In 2005, she earned a scholarship to study at the Beijing Language and Culture University in China, where she expanded her horizons as she interacted with students from all over the world. Liwen’s first internship began at the Monterey Park Economic Development Center, where she worked alongside project managers of various developing ventures and participated in economic redevelopment projects of older commercial areas in the city. In 2006, she graduated Summa Cum Laude from East Los Angeles College before transferring as a UCLA Alumni Scholar. Since then she has been working at the UCLA East Asian Library. Currently she is also a tax intern at 20th Century Fox, where she is able to combine her interests in the media and entertainment industry with her knowledge in business and accounting. In addition, she has interned for two years with the Long Beach-Qingdao Sister City Association, an organization which promotes exchanges and cooperation between Long Beach and Qingdao (a port city on the northeastern Chinese coast). She has been managing the Association’s website and has gained valuable learning experiences about international relations and the import-export business community in Southern California.

Future Plans: After graduation, Liwen’s immediate goal is to work for a management consulting, investment banking or public accounting firm before pursuing an MBA. In the future, she plans to explore different fields and industries, and hopes to one day have the opportunity to work for either an international economic development agency or a global media/entertainment firm.

What does the scholarship mean to me?: I am extremely grateful to receive the Howard J. and Mitzi W. Green Scholarship. As a result of this scholarship, I will have less pressure to finance my education, therefore allowing me more time to focus on my academic and professional endeavors. This award serves not only as a source of financial support but also as a confirmation of my academic pursuits. Many thanks to both the Greens and to the UCLA Department of Economics.

Divya Sudhakar

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2007 Patricia and Harry L. Bruce Endowed Scholarship Recipient

Biography: Divya is a third year Business-Economics major with a minor in Accounting. She is currently the head coordinator of UCLA VITA (Volunteer Income Tax Assistance program) and has been involved in the organization for the past two year. She is also involved in the USAC Facilities Commission and UBS. Divya has partaken in various research projects under the guidance of Professor McGarry for the past two years. Additionally, she is a grader for Professor Ravetch.

Future Plans: Divya will pursue an internship in the finance sector this coming summer. Upon graduation in 2009, she plans to obtain a few years of work experience before going to Business school to attain her MBA. Her interest lies in finance and she would like to build her career in this field.

What does the scholarship mean to me?: I would like to thank Mr. and Mrs. Harry L. Bruce for awarding me the Patricia and Harry L. Bruce Endowed Scholarship. I am honored to be the recipient of this prestigious award. This scholarship will allow me to focus on my extra-curricular activities and academics while relieving me of my financial burden. I hope to use this opportunity to spend a greater amount of time making VITA more efficient in serving the Los Angeles community.

Brian Murray

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2007 The Gumbiner Savett Inc. Scholarship Recipient

Biography: Brian Murray is a fourth year student majoring in Business Economics. He graduated with the class of 2004 from San Ramon High School in Danville, California. He will graduate in 2008 with a major in Business Economics and a minor in Accounting. Since coming to UCLA, Brian has worked as an intern with Sperry Van Ness, a nationwide commercial real estate company during which time he obtained his California Real Estate license. This summer he completed an internship with Price Waterhouse in their Advisory-Risk, Internal Audit, Compliance and Investigation Group. Since his freshman year Brian has been a member of UCLA’s Project Literacy program, which is a volunteer organization that provides tutoring and mentoring to underprivileged children. For the past two years he has been elected as the director of finance for the Project Literacy program and is responsible for preparing and presenting funding applications to obtain financial backing for the program. He has also worked since his sophomore year as a private tutor. Brian has been a member of UCLA’s club soccer tem and has been elected both team captain and president of the club over the past two years. He has maintained an overall grade point average of 3.75 while at UCLA and is a member of the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity.

Future Plans: Brian Murray expects to complete his degree in Business Economics with a minor in Accounting by the spring of 2008. He has been offered a position with Price Waterhouse in their Advisory-Risk, Internal Audit, Compliance and Investigation Group at their Los Angeles office to begin in the summer of 2008. It is Brian’s plan to begin studying for his CPA examinations and GMAT exam before beginning work with Price Waterhouse. His long range plan is to return to graduate school and obtain his MBA and then return to work in the private sector.

What does the scholarship mean to me?: I am both extremely excited and grateful for having been chosen as the recipient of the Gumbiner, Savett, Inc. scholarship for the 2007-2008 academic year. The scholarship will allow me to not work during my last school year to UCLA while concentrating on my studies. I also plan to start studying for my CPA exams and the GMAT exam during 2007-2008 and the scholarship will also help ease the financial burden of studying for those exams without having to work while also completing my last year of studies at UCLA. As important as the monetary assistance that the scholarship provides me, the pride in having been chosen as the recipient is even more rewarding. I am both fortunate and proud at having been recognized by Gumbiner, Savett, Inc. as being worthy of this scholarship.

Terry Kramer

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Terry Kramer can be best described as a master of all trades. He has succeeded in a variety fields including business, public affairs and academia. The epitome of a leader, Terry Kramer has shown the world what it means to be a Bruin.

Terry Kramer

Starting from his days at UCLA, Terry Kramer kept developing his skills based on the demands and context of the task he was assigned. He explains how his journey through multiple fields strengthened the three key aspects of leadership—strategic, operational and people leadership. UCLA kickstarted this journey by teaching and reinforcing these three key aspects; he learned to analyze the situation, understand the competitors and take well-informed initiatives on a diverse set of problems. At the same time, as president of Hedrick Hall, he acquired operational leadership skills by advocating for causes, staging events and more. Combined with school work, he truly learned how to best manage his time to get the job done. He learned to establish connections and have meaningful interactions, skills which became essential to his career outside UCLA.

After a brief stint at Harris Corporation, a technology company, his journey then led him to Harvard Business School. He explains that it is easy to get intimidated by the amount of smart people around, but this pushed him to work harder. The challenge allowed him to acquire skills that were indispensable later on. His advice is that when applying to competitive schools, it is vital to get comfortable with the fact that the competition is tough without getting discouraged and to ultimately develop your own unique “brand position”. Applicants must understand that even though there are a lot of smart people, there are also a lot of great jobs and that each person brings a unique set of capabilities that creates a unique and high-impact learning environment

His educational training helped him rise in a variety of fields, be it Vodafone or his role as US Ambassador. Terry Kramer explains that his experiences in the numerous departments at Vodafone were inspired by a top executive who moved him all over the business. This diverse journey was possible because of the people he built connections with, combined with his interest and willingness to take on new challenges. For instance, he met former FCC Chair, Tom Wheeler who was a key advisor in the Obama administration and informed him of the Ambassador job opening. After five months of background checks and a requirement to sell all of his personal tech holdings, he became the ambassador for the negotiations of an internet and telecom regulations treaty at the World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) in Dubai.

When asked why he decided to move around so much, Terry Kramer advised us that we should use the concept of diminishing returns rather than opportunity cost when making career decisions. We must keep on climbing new learning curves and find new opportunities once we begin to feel like we’re settling into a comfort zone. Congruously, we should think big and be ambitious, rather than getting stuck in a conservative and pragmatic mindset. We must take risks if we want to achieve great things. “It is always better to get 90% of a stretch plan than 101% of a modest plan.”

Completing the full circle, Terry Kramer’s path brings him back to UCLA as a professor at Anderson. He started by giving a few guest lectures, acting as a judge for a business plan contest and a faculty advisor for the UCLA Anderson  capstone project focused on a 6 month management consulting assignment yielding a 50 page business plan. Next he was able to develop a course on the mobile communication industry based on strong student interest. Finally, he was additionally asked to teach a foundational course because of technology management encompassing cloud computing, Internet of Things and AI/big data industries. And he certainly loves teaching these to passionate Bruins. You might wonder, with his astounding CV, why did he choose UCLA? He could teach anywhere in the country (especially because he lives in the Bay Area). Pragmatically speaking, at UCLA he would be able to teach innovative courses on technology and drive his own curriculum and teaching approach. And even though he sometimes he takes 6AM flights to LA, once he gets a glimpse of Royce Hall or good ol’ Hedrick Hall, all the fatigue gets replaced with exhilaration.

Furthermore, he strongly believes that it is crucial to serve others along the way. He cannot think of a better way to serve others than by teaching at his alma mater. In fact, Mr. Kramer believes that serving others is one of the pillars to success and biggest source of saisfaction. In the hustle and bustle of life, it is easy to get “me-oriented”, but we need to add value for others wherever we go.  Serving others is what defines us as Bruins.

 

–          By Natsharee Pulkes and Harsh Gupta, UCLA Undergraduates

 

Click here to see more Alumni Interviews.

 

Tim Najera

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2008 Professor Harry Simons Endowed Undergraduate Scholarship for the Study of Accounting Recipient

Biography: Tim Najera is a third year, majoring in Business Economics while pursuing a minor in Accounting. He is currently on pace to graduate in three years with College Honors. Tim was born in Southern California to two UCLA alumni. At Reseda Math Science Magnet High School located in the San Fernando Valley he was class valedictorian graduating first overall in his class. In high school, he was captain of the Swim Team, captain of Science Bowl, and president of Alcuins Honor Society. During his time at UCLA, he was the head coach of Cleveland High School’s Varsity Water Polo Team and worked as an Open Water Lifeguard. He just completed a summer internship as a Federal Tax Intern for KPMG. During his free time Tim enjoys swimming, running, working out at the gym and spending time with his girlfriend.

Future Plans: After completing an internship in taxation, Tim plans to continue to his interest and work full time. Within the next year Tim plans to earn his CPA license. In the future Tim hopes to be able to continue his education and earn a degree in either law and or a Master’s in Business Administration.

What does the scholarship mean to me?: I am honored to have been a recipient of the Harry Simon Scholarship for the 2008-2009 academic year. The money will help ease the financial burden for myself and allow me to fully focus on my studies, pursue other academic interests and sit down and plan my future. The scholarship has reinforced my belief that hard work and effort will pay off in the long run.

Charles Cheng

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2008 The Ralph and Shirley Shapiro Scholarship Recipient

Biography: Charles Cheng is currently in his fourth year at UCLA. He is majoring in Business Economics, along with a minor in Accounting. Charles is an international student from Hong Kong. He went to Santa Monica College and then transferred to UCLA. He has done enough community services to qualify the President award since his arrival in the United States. This is a door open for him to contact more people, to serve the community and to know more about the culture. He really enjoys being a Bruin. He has worked in BearWear and tried to show the Bruin’s energy to all the customers ranging from SoCal to everywhere around the world. The reason why he chose Economics major is that Charles was inspired by his parents’ view and their works in banking, finance and management. This exposed him to the intriguing business world and helped develop his personal interest to this area. This summer, he joined Deloitte as a summer audit intern to gain more practical experience.

Future Plans: After working in Deloitte, Charles plans on sitting for the CPA exam and would like to work in the public accounting or banking industries. In distant future, he would like to earn an MBA and the master of public policy in the United States. This will further his career and polish him to be more all-rounded in order to be successful in the exciting business world. In the distant future, he would like to establish his own companies in poor countries and hope this can help the people to get out from the poverty.

What does the scholarship mean to me?: I am very fortunate to be the recipient of The Ralph and Shirley Shapiro Scholarship. It reduces my financial burden and gives me more time to prepare my schoolwork. Besides, this scholarship is a very good award to confirm my accomplishment. It motivates me a lot to keep on pursuing my dream as well as working harder in my future life. UCLA gives students good foundation in accounting and economics. I hope I can make full use of my knowledge and my experience to help others understand more about the financial industry. In my last year in UCLA, I will devote myself to make the campus different and to achieve a higher academic goal.

Lotta Andonian

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2008 Patricia and Harry L. Bruce Endowed Scholarship Recipient

Biography: Lotta Andonian is a fourth-year Business Economics major and French minor pursuing College and Departmental Honors. Andonian developed a passion for economics during the Honors Economics class she took as a senior in high school, and her desire to pursue a career in business has been solidified by the outstanding courses in economics and management available at UCLA. Her interests focus on international trade and the idea of conscious capitalism, which she plans to write her honors thesis on. She has maintained an overall GPA of 3.94 at UCLA and is a member of the Alpha Lambda Delta and Phi Eta Sigma National Academic Honors Societies.Since coming to UCLA, Andonian has interned with two production companies, working as a research intern at Rivet Entertainment and as a marketing intern at Tree Media Group. Andonian also works as a grader for the Department of Economics and as a research assistant for Professor George Murphy, for whom she researches both economic history and the causes of the current financial turmoil. Andonian is an active member of the International Student Association, the Undergraduate Business Society, E3 (the UCLA chapter of the California Student Sustainability Coalition), and is a leader of the Sustainable Foods Campaign.

Future Plans: Andonian plans to work abroad for a few years before returning to school to pursue a Master of Business Administration or a graduate degree in economics. She is considering a career in management, marketing or consulting for an international company upon completion of her graduate studies. She is drawn to international business because of the potential to use her background in economics and finance to improve local and foreign economies while engaging in environmentally and socially responsible business practices.

What does the scholarship mean to me?: I am proud and grateful to be the recipient of the Patricia and Harry L. Bruce Endowed Scholarship. I am deeply honored that the Bruces have recognized my past academic successes and have confidence in my potential for future achievement. With less pressure to finance my education by working, I will be able to focus on writing my thesis for the Departmental Honors program. I will also have more time to take advantage of the numerous career-oriented workshops and events on campus that will help me further cultivate the skills necessary to achieve my professional goals.Additionally, I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Department of Economics for making these scholarships available to its students.

Sa-Pyung Shin

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2008 Professor Harry Simons Endowed Undergraduate Scholarship for the Study of Accounting Recipient

Biography: Sa-Pyung Shin is a senior at UCLA majoring in Business Economics and minoring in Accounting. Born in Seoul, Korea on June 2nd, 1984, Sa-Pyung grew up in Korea. His father named him Sa-Pyung, which means “Think Peace.” He came to the United States to study abroad in his junior year of high school and entered UCLA in 2003. He left school for two and a half years to serve military duty in Korea Air Force after his sophomore year and came back in 2008. He is a finance officer of the Korean Student Union. He did an internship at Deloitte in Seoul, Korea this past summer.

Future Plans: In his last year at UCLA, Sa-Pyung wants to broaden and deepen his knowledge in finance and accounting. He is also considering a thesis project for the Departmental Honors Program. He plans to earn a CPA license after graduation and build work experience before pursuing an advanced degree in Business Administration. He is especially interested in efficient allocation of capital and it is his ultimate dream to contribute his knowledge to developing an economic policy or a financial system which will bring about peace and prosperity in the global society.

What does the scholarship mean to me?: It is a great honor to be selected as a Professor Harry Simon Endowed Undergraduate Scholarship recipient. This scholarship will lessen the financial burdens as an international student and allow me to focus more on my studies at UCLA. It also has given me great pride and confidence that would aid me in my development of specific avenues to fulfill my ambitious dream. Most of all, I realized that hard-work would always be rewarded. In return for this grateful favor, I will do my best to live up to the expectations of the scholarship donors and the people around me.

Bryant Ramirez

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2008 The Gumbiner Savett Inc. Scholarship Recipient

Biography: Bryant Ramirez is a third-year student at UCLA, majoring in Business Economics and minoring in Accounting, and Film, Television & Digital Media. Born and raised in Oxnard, California, he graduated from Oxnard High School in 2006 as Salutatorian. During his UCLA Career, Bryant has pursued various leadership and professional opportunities. Throughout his second year, he was President of Future Business Leaders of America – Phi Beta Lambda, a student organization at UCLA that strives to educate students on how to successfully pursue careers in business. In addition, Bryant has interned at Citigroup as a productivity consultant and at Ernst & Young as a tax intern. In his spare time, Bryant enjoys playing music, including playing guitar and singing, traveling and talking politics.

Future Plans: Bryant plans to graduate in 2010 in Business Economics with College Honors. He intends to pursue a career in accounting or consulting. Bryant plans to earn a Masters in Business Administration in the future, as well as travel abroad, in both a personal and professional context, to develop a more well-rounded worldview.

What does the scholarship mean to me?: I am honored and grateful for being selected as the recipient of the Gumbiner, Savett, Inc. scholarship this year. With this additional support, I am better able to focus on my studies and preparing for my career goals in the near future. In addition, this award provides me with more time to participate in extracurricular activities on campus and to become more involved in my community. Since the financial support for my education has come almost solely from my parents and my personal savings from internship and part-time earnings, any outside support is deeply appreciated. Overall, I am humbled by being the recipient of this prestigious award. With this recognition, I am only more encouraged to strive to succeed towards my future goals. I sincerely thank Gumbiner, Savett, Inc. for their support of my education.