Student Profile

April Chye

Where are you working?

I am currently a Project Manager at Bloomberg LP Hong Kong, and I'm responsible for acquiring real-time market data from financial exchanges.

Why did you decide to sign up for CORe?

Having come from a liberal arts background, I found stepping into the corporate world to be an eye-opening transition. Things are a lot more concrete, and there are set procedures for nearly everything. No one will tell you that there are different methods of tackling a problem. You've got to kind of figure that out for yourself.

Over the first few months, getting into the routine of things at work meant that I was becoming an efficient worker. But I also knew there was a bigger picture out there, and I wanted to find a way to comprehend the grander scheme of things - like understanding the cost of acquiring data and what competitive advantages different firms have over each other.

As someone who hopes to run a business one day, I was also keen to get an overview of balance sheets, income statements, and the nitty-gritty details of financing that I previously had not been exposed to, and I believe that CORe has really gone a long way in giving me all of that.

What was your favorite part of the program?

I really enjoyed the experience of progressing through chapters and modules each week. My favorite part would be Professor Anand's jokes in some of the videos. You'd have to watch pretty carefully (but you would since you have to take notes anyway), and they'd always make me laugh.

How are you applying what you've learned in CORe?

The effects of CORe have been more subtle than I expected. I didn't walk into work the day after finishing CORe and actively begin thinking in all sorts of new business concepts we'd been taught.

The skills I gathered from Business Analytics also proved useful when we had to do statistical analysis on content usage at work. I am sure the effects of CORe will continue to present themselves in small but impactful ways, and I am so glad to have been part of the journey that was the June 2015 cohort of CORe.