Kingson Wang ’23, Financial Analyst at First Citizens Bank

According to Kingson Wang, Jenkins Graduate Programs offered a foundation in marketing and analytics he couldn’t find anywhere else – and as a career changer hoping to pivot into a data analyst role, that opportunity was too good to pass up. Thanks to hands-on learning opportunities in the Master of Management, Marketing Analytics (MMA) program and the opportunity to learn modern analytics software, he landed a job at First Citizens Bank.

Get to know Kingson 

Current role: Financial analyst, First Citizens Bank
Current industry: Finance
Current location: Raleigh, NC

Program start date: August 2021
Graduation date: May 2023
Certificate: Business Analytics 

Life before Jenkins

Why Marketing Analytics?

After recognizing that his career had strayed away from his passions, Wang decided to pursue a career change and began looking into different master’s programs. “I was at a point in my career where I knew I wasn’t happy with what I was doing. It was so far off course from where I originally wanted to go. So, I decided to go back to school and reset my path and came across the Marketing Analytics program at NC State,” he says. 

Why Jenkins? 

Wang quickly realized that Jenkins Graduate School offered a degree program he couldn’t find anywhere else. “My undergraduate degree was in marketing, and I was interested in the field of analytics – so this program seemed like the best of both worlds. It was a unique opportunity to learn new skills that are more in-demand than ever before – and to see how they’re applied in the real world,” he says. 

It was a unique opportunity to learn new skills that are more in-demand than ever before – and to see how they’re applied in the real world.

What made it great

For Wang, the real-world connections made in the classroom – plus the experiential learning opportunities – made the MMA curriculum engaging, practical and beneficial to his current role. “I really appreciated the hands-on projects that we worked on and have found that they’ve translated over to the work I do now,” he explains. “Our practicum stands out because we had the opportunity to assist an actual company and help them solve a problem their business was facing.” He also appreciated how engaging the professors in the MMA program were. “They were very knowledgeable and it was obvious that they were passionate about the topics they taught,” he says. 

Career impact 

After graduating, Wang was hired as a financial analyst with First Citizens Bank. “Without a doubt, this degree helped me get the offer. In particular, they were impressed with my knowledge of the software the company uses – which I learned in the MMA program,” he says. “That helped me become acclimated to my current role very quickly.” 

Final thoughts

Wang recommends the program to anyone with a passion for analytics – and especially those who hope to make a career change. “If you’re like me and want to try a new career that is more challenging, then I’d recommend giving this program a try. The MMA program allowed me to develop new skill sets that I otherwise would not have had the opportunity to acquire,” he says.

Being able to tell those kinds of stories with data is critical for making informed decisions – and that’s what the MMA program equips graduates to do.

He also recommends the program to anyone who wants to learn how to tell stories using data. “In my current role, I deal with lots of spreadsheets – and looking at the dataset at a surface level, the numbers don’t mean much. Once I dive a little deeper, that’s when a story starts to form. The MMA program taught me that data sometimes seems to say one thing, but if we put it into visual form, it might tell us something different,” Wang explains. “For example, I was recently tasked with seeing whether my bank’s recent acquisition resulted in competing services. On the surface, it seemed that our banks were competing in the same sector – until I looked at it on a more granular level. I realized that our banks may have a presence in the same category, but their services were catered to different clients. Being able to tell those kinds of stories with data is critical for making informed decisions – and that’s what the MMA program equips graduates to do.”

Get in touch

Connect with Kingson on LinkedIn. 

To learn more about the Master of Management, Marketing Analytics (MMA) program at NC State’s Poole College of Management, click here.