Undergraduate Career - Academic Interests
Behavioral Psychology on Consumer Behavior & Social Media
After taking classes such as Introduction to Psychology, Macroeconomics, and Risk and Fluctuations in Financial Markets, I noticed that in addition to understanding how fundamental factors (inflation rates, geopolitical issues, interest rates, macroeconomic activity) affects stock market movement, there are psychological aspects that impact investing, such as underreaction, worry, optimism, and euphoria. Factor analysis from Bloomberg’s database was among the day-to-day analysis I conducted to analyze how President Trump’s tweets may affect the market.
Ethnic Enclaves, Marketing, and Community Growth
New York is especially unique despite the growing globalizing world. New York is known as a safe haven for immigrants - who are not only fiscally supported but also culturally. Immigrants are drawn to these communities as a home away from home and are given the chance to assimilate to American culture while also have a chance to contribute to micro-communities, or ethnic enclaves. A major problem arising with the commercialization and gentrification of New York City , are these cultures and communities authentically supported or does government support masque a fundamental appropriation, commercialization, and commodification of these cultures for perception and tourist purposes?
Rational vs Intuitive Decision Making - Is One Better? Which Incites Innovation?
My high school superlative - “Most Indecisive” (thanks to one of my best friends). Nevertheless, this shaped my curiosity on how decisions are formed and how can I be a more efficient decision maker? I realized that I was constantly in flux between rational expectations/thought and my “gut” feeling - especially when it came to meeting and cultivating relationships with others. “Gut” feelings also reflect an instantaneous or snap decision that may include a culmination of more information than we it lets on - considering we only consciously use a small percentage of our mind. Growing to further understand our minds, decision making, and how society shapes our decision making (financially and socially) will always pique my interest.
Undergraduate Career - Extracurriculars
NYU Opportunity Programs
Student Leader. I was given the opportunity during my undergraduate career to be proud of myself and empower other students. I was able to not only share my story and experiences but really listen and learn from others’.
NYU Pre-SOMA
NYU's only osteopathic medical association. Our goal is to provide an on campus organization to represent and bring awareness to osteopathic medicine. I participated as the Treasurer and became truly interested in learning more about finance, especially in healthcare.
Developed my interest in healthcare and disparities in healthcare finances
Empire @ NYU
Cooperate with Princeton University’s Entrepreneurial Association to plan the East Coast regional competition for TigerLaunch, an entrepreneurial competition
Develop new ways to attract a diverse audience by discovering and producing new content, enhancing our distribution model, advocating for new and innovative businesses, and supporting student’s career trajectories
Plan and market events for audiences greater than 50 by corresponding with companies, venture capitalists, and other clubs to diversify events.
Enhanced my interest in bridging creative topics (art, music, sociology) with more technical subjects (economics, statistics, psychology, chemistry, computer science)
Graduate School - Academic Interests
Thesis
Under the lens of economic sociology and through the understanding of social embeddedness in the economy, I intend to extend this analysis of embeddedness to music sentiment and economic consumer sentiment. Music, like all art, is an expression of society’s true, unexpressed feelings and therefore, is as ingrained in society as Polanyi suggests, the economy. Since the dotcom era and the rise of globalization, there has been a boom in the accessibility, analysis, and distribution of artists, music, and lyrics. The rise of music streaming software, such as Spotify, Youtube, and Soundcloud have made it possible to distribute, personalize, and analyze music in different, unique ways. With music, sentiment is displayed through lyrics, tone, loudness, key, rhythm, and harmony. There is a lot of research on the correlation between music sentiment and consumer spending, however, I intend to look at it says about America’s culture today and possibly, what should be done about it, while holding all other social, economic, and political variables constant. I looked at the questions: who creates the trends for music? Can America’s culture be determined from music sentiment? and How does music/rhythm/genre correlate to consumption behavior in terms of the three main indicators of the Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index, the Consumer Confidence Index, and Consumer Spending of Goods and Non-durable goods as released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis?
Discourses by Polanyi, Roy, Marx, and Bourdieu fueled and supported my research to expose a truth about the manipulation of emotions that our capitalist economy has normalized as well as a reflection of the way we have become so enthralled in pursuing unrealistic lifestyles and upholding a certain image. I decided to pivot to collect data from the Billboard Hot 100 songs to determine a general sentiment of today’s popular music and how it has gradually changed over the last two decades within both music and lyric composition. Through conducting a sentiment and statistical analysis, I was able to determine that compared to music of the early 2000’s, music now reflects a divided America - a callous, materialistic America internally and financially struggling on a fundamental basis.
Country Risk Analysis
My graduate career was a combination of understanding the world on a global scale, consumer behavior, sociology, and economics through a digital humanities lens. My classes in country risk analysis introduced me to and tied together so many of the factors I needed to consider for my thesis, but also helped me better understand cultural behavior and these community/cultural values really affect the investment landscape of countries. Determining a decision to invest from considering both social, political and economic factors that may have monumental financial repercussions tied together both my undergraduate and graduate academic interests.
Digital Humanities
Digital Humanities is a burgeoning field that takes a digital approach to analyze and represent the humanities - English, History, etc. My program gave me the opportunity to extend this into Economics. I learned about new opportunities to understand classic literature and to experience history in a museum using new technology. I was given the opportunity to understand how sociology can be a reflection of the bridging between science fiction, the release of new movies and music, and technology. Taking a digital humanities approach to my thesis and my graduate career allowed me to really be introduced to tracking and understanding trends in a social and artistic context.
Consumer Behavior
How do companies collect consumer data and exploit it for success? Consumer behavior is more than this, however. It explains how our mind works, what we’re drawn to, and how we can expand our minds and interests based on our current interests. How can our needs be better met with a stronger understanding of what we’re looking for? Spotify, for example, adjusted the music streaming industry from a luxury good to a free, continuous, and easy to use access to music. As an entity, they prioritize users by addressing their needs and wants in a personalized way - a relationship that people generally have with their music, not necessarily the other way around.
