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Alex Lan

After completing an associate’s degree in computer application, Alex Lan from China began his sales career in the local automobile industry. The role opened his eyes to the importance of effective communication and keeping up with the latest social media skills. These realisations inspired him to pursue an undergraduate degree in marketing at SUU before going back to his future-focused roots with an MSBA. “I knew it would be the perfect stepping stone to a high-tech career,” he said.

True enough, Lan got to grasp the basics of coding and various programming languages through his most hands-on classes. However, it wasn’t all technical.

It was easy to comprehend the theoretical and the practical, considering Lan was learning from the best. “All of my professors have first-hand, industrial experience; hence, our projects were always based on real-world challenges,” he says. “They were also extremely pivotal to our professional development, vetting our resumes and telling us what we should expect during job interviews.”

Their guidance ensured Lan was ready to conquer the US job market, even in the midst of a pandemic. Like everyone else, Lan was reaching out to his connections and sending out his CV on LinkedIn; until one day MarketStar got in touch, intrigued by his MSBA background. Two interviews later, they offered him the chance to join a new programme they were developing for budding tech professionals. Today, two-and-a-half years later, Lan remains at the multinational, currently serving as their Dedicated Data Analyst for Google Cloud.

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“Interpreting data is one thing, and conveying your findings is another,” he explains. “The MSBA taught me it’s not about the algorithm; it’s about how you tell the story and how it can help the business.”