Student Perspectives: Fanny Sun (BS'15)

NYU Stern Undergraduate College
Fanny Sun
As Fanny Sun learns more about business as a student at Stern, she’s also been able to explore the type of business career that’s right for her. When Fanny arrived freshman year, she planned to concentrate in marketing and finance. She soon decided, however, that finance was too quantitative for her. “I love the math and the data,” she explains, “but for me to really care about it, it’s got to connect with people.” It turned out that the right path for her was a switch to a double concentration in marketing and management. Fanny aspires to one day work in the area of brand management, taking market research and applying it to communicate with consumers. “I want to do something that affects people and the way they live their lives,” she says.

The roots of this idea stretch back to Fanny’s childhood. “My dad is a financial planner for MetLife,” she says. “I grew up watching him build his business from the ground up, working every day with his clients. That helped me understand how powerful the personal side of business can be.”

Given her feelings about the personal aspects of business, it make sense that some of Fanny’s best experiences are centered around building community at Stern—for instance, taking a leadership role as a director of her cohort, East Village. “Cohorts are Stern’s way of taking a large class and turning it into small groups,” Fanny says. “That means you can really know these people. It’s a good basis for friendship, and one day it will be a great basis for networking. It’s also a lot of fun.” Highlight activities with her fellow cohort members have ranged from a Broadway show to a laser tag adventure in Queens, to a night out at Shake Shack and a movie.

As she looks to the future, Fanny is excited to get involved in more Stern extracurriculars, from connecting with more upperclassmen and taking advantage of the many talks by business leaders who visit campus to serving as an orientation leader, helping to guide new Stern freshmen. As she says, “At the end of the day, it’s always about people.”