Speaking of Careers: NYC Metro Alumni Club Welcomes Current Students and Recent Graduates

Emerging corporate partner Bank of America (BOA) hosted the Alumni Association of NJIT’s “Speaking of Careers” event at the company’s midtown Manhattan headquarters on March 28 for an audience of current students and recent graduates. The evening featured a panel of distinguished alumni who shared personal stories of their individual journeys from NJIT’s classrooms to the boardrooms of some of the country’s most influential companies. Among the attendees were several of 28 recently hired Ying Wu College of Computing (YWCC) students from the fall 2022 semester.

NJIT President Teik C. Lim opened the event by encouraging all attendees to be informed, involved and invested as the tenets of what he calls the three “I’s” of NJIT. He then reflected on the evening’s theme of power, preferring to redefine the development of soft skills as power skills, and emphasizing the importance of communication and empathy as intrinsic to success in every aspect of professional and personal life.

BOA’s Managing Director & COO for Global Markets Technology Jonathan Echeverria, ’03, in the program’s welcoming remarks wrote: “[To] NJIT students who will be joining the Bank of America team, or joined over the last few years, [be] proud of being selected to join a company that […] has a purpose – a purpose that you all have an opportunity to contribute towards and influence.”  

He continued by posing the theme-related question “What would you like [to have] the power to do?” His own response entailed wanting the power to see young professionals with ambition thrive in [our] communities and in companies across the nation, having launched a campaign at BOA three years ago to make NJIT a targeted institution for recruitment and other partnerships.

During the Q&A, Rafael Abreu, a sophomore computer science major, introduced the topic of how to deal with creative blocks. The panel all agreed that allowing for the ability to fail with the power to persevere can lead to transformative breakthroughs. Abreu was also commended for his initiative to plan his future early by attending the event.

Abreu is already maximizing the start of his journey at NJIT by helping found the new Hispanic Association of Computing College Students (HACCS) and will be featured in an upcoming episode of Amazon Prime’s The College Tour, which recently filmed at NJIT.

Among the 28 YWCC students who have recently joined BOA as employees, or will be starting new jobs soon, are Adam Rawashdeh, and Alon Lerner (computer science), Antony Habib (information technology), Abhishek Ranpura (business & information systems) and Sarah Marquez and Pham Thuy Vu Ton (human-computer interaction).

Post-event networking allowed students to mingle with future colleagues and BOA corporate administration, including Echeverria, who shared his experience as an NJIT student who has become one of BOA’s most senior executives from a LatinX background.

Ying Wu College of Computing is honored to contribute tech talent to Bank of America’s operations and proud of the 28 students who will launch lucrative careers as influencers in the world of finance.