Business Major Cedric Alam Heads to Bank of America for a Finance Career

by Briana Foxx and Evan Koblentz

Cedric Alam, a senior business major concentrating in finance, will start his career this summer in the financial management analysis program at Bank of America’s headquarters in Charlotte, North Carolina. Alam discovered NJIT after moving to Colts Neck from his native Lebanon as a child. His father was a frequent business traveler and instilled the importance of both technology and proximity to New York — so NJIT and specifically Martin Tuchman School of Management was his first choice for college. His brother and several cousins go here, too.

“The way they mixed technology with business really interested me,” he said. “I even had to take computer science classes as a business student. I think this really prepares you for the future that’s now dominated by AI and coding.”

Before arriving in Newark, “I really thought that business and finance was easy. You add up numbers, you go down, subtracting numbers to get your income … NJIT has shown me that every single number you get while analyzing a business has a meaning. It's here because of a reason.”

“There's always a meaning between numbers, behind numbers, and this meaning is always changing, so you always have to keep crunching numbers, analyzing, and NJIT has really shown me this because se I've taken so many classes about one topic, and each class presents a different view on how to attack the topic.”

Something else he didn’t realize about NJIT before applying, but grew to love as a student here, was the value of being part of a small, tight-knit community. He said friends at other universities attend lecture halls with hundreds of other students, and they expressed surprise that faculty here teach courses as small as 20-30 people and even knew his name. [Professors] ask about, what are we doing for a future career, if we need their help and everything, it’s so very helpful. I think this is a good perk of just it being a smaller school,” he noted.

I'm thankful to NJIT for all the opportunities it's given me

“Every year was different. There was my freshman year, where I was going around meeting people. My second year, where I co founded the Lebanese Student Association. The third year where I met my girlfriend. Fourth year, I'm about to graduate, and all the opportunities I got. Every summer I had a different internship thanks to NJIT,” he recalled. All along, he also played in pick-up and recreational league basketball tournaments — Alam even attended a post-secondary basketball prep school, before getting injured and pivoting back to academics as his top focus.

Reflecting on what he’d tell new students, “Try to build relationships with your professors if you do end up coming to the Martin Tuchman School of Management, because they can be really helpful. And something great is that everything you're going to learn here, you're actually going to apply in your career. I went through different internships, and I always applied everything I learned at NJIT,” Alam said. That goes for job searches, too — “NJIT really puts you at an advantage with their curriculum and all the classes they teach you, and especially with the Career Development Services. But that advantage is not enough. You have to put yourself out there. NJIT pushes you through the door, but you have to go shake the hands.”

Alam said two faculty members were special to him — Professor Shanti Gopalakrishnan, who is associate dean of the Tuchman school and taught Alam’s senior business policy course, along with Ying Wu College of Computing Distinguished Professor Fadi Deek, formerly NJIT’s provost, who also came from Lebanon and mentored Alam all four years. Gopalakrishnan is an excellent teacher, and Deek often gave advice and helped make business contacts, Alam observed.

Alam said he is considering going back to school for an MBA degree after working for a few years. Long-term, “My dream job has always been sort of cliche but it is to become the CEO of one of the biggest companies in the world through career progression within that company or through establishing a new very successful business,” he said. “Now knowing that I will be starting at Bank of America soon, my current dream job would obviously be to rise through the ranks of the bank and become the CFO or CEO someday. Through this high ranking position, I hope to be able to make as much of a positive impact on the world as I can. I have always been someone that thinks about the good of others before my own and I feel like being part of top management gives me this opportunity.”

In closing, he said that from the basketball court to learning about Bloomberg terminals in MTSM’s Ray Cassetta Financial Analysis Laboratory, “I'm thankful to NJIT for all the opportunities it's given me. And, you know, it was a great experience. Great four years. Would recommend!”