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Financial Planning Minor
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Equities Analyst
State Farm Insurance, Investments Department, Bloomington
Numan also holds an MBA from the University of Chicago 's Graduate School of Business (2003). At Illinois State he minored in Economics and was in the Honors Program.
He is pictured in his office at the State Farm headquarters.
Area of Finance specialization: Investments and Portfolio Management
Hometown: Bloomington, Illinois
ECO 101 and 102 Principles of Micro and Macroeconomics. These freshman courses gave me my first exposure to the nature of business and markets, and provided a strong foundation for understanding supply and demand, and what affects each curve. Another interesting course was the honors section of FIL 208 Legal Environment of Business. I'm also glad I took some extra accounting, which gave me a better grasp of financial statements.
Having a hideaway on the 4th floor at Milner Library. I found a quiet place up there, in an area where there usually weren't any other people around. It became “my spot;” it was where I did most of my studying, and my friends always knew that they could find me there.
We manage State Farm's investment portfolio. I'm in the equity area, meaning that we deal with common stocks, and I focus on the technology sector. My job is to analyze software and semiconductor firms that we own, and other companies whose shares we might want to buy. I've had the chance to meet with prominent people in the tech world, including Bill Gates, who talked to me for about an hour! What actually has the biggest impact on me is the fundamental knowledge from a range of finance and other courses; knowing the basics is important because you use that material every day. Mastering a few important things in each class can really contribute to your success. The internship I had with Merrill Lynch in Chicago also has had a major impact; it was unpaid, but it showed me that I wanted to be an analyst.
The professors provide the right information, so if you take responsibility for doing the reading and homework you'll have a great learning experience. I was pleasantly surprised by how well prepared I was for graduate finance courses in one of the country's top MBA programs; all the topics we covered had been introduced to me at ISU. It's an excellent place to complete an undergraduate Finance degree.