The College of Business congratulates and extends best wishes to each of the ten undergraduate honorees of the graduating Class of 2014.
Each year the department's top performers are selected by the college's academic departments from its graduating seniors. These students receive special recognition from the university during commencement week.
In addition, Dana Anvari was selected as the college's undergraduate hood recipient, to be recognized at Commencement.
The ten undergraduate honors recipients with links to read more about these remarkable graduates:
- Dana Anvari, 2014 College of Business Hood Recipient and Department of Marketing Undergraduate Honoree
- William Chin, Accounting
- Christian Lee, Decision Sciences
- Zane Summers, Economics
- Michael Song, Finance
- Devan Lane, Hospitality and Tourism Management
- Priya Gupta, Information Systems
- Martyna Majchrzak, International Business
- Cassandra Carrillo, Labor and Employment Studies
- Elizabeth Hamm, Management
Dana Anvari
2014 College of Business Hood Recipient
Department of Marketing Undergraduate Honoree
Like many of our students, Dana transferred to San Francisco State from Diablo Valley College, and like many of our students she worked part time, while carrying a full load of classes. What set Marketing major Dana Anvari apart from the rest, however, was her unique combination of academic, professional and global experience. While she enjoyed many memorable experiences during her time here, Dana’s most exciting educational moment occurred last semester when she was assigned to develop an advertising strategy for the camera company GoPro. Based on the outstanding quality of her analysis and presentation, Dana and her team were invited to present their findings to the company’s Vice President of Marketing. Extremely impressed by the team’s recommendation that GoPro expand beyond their current extreme sports audience to parents with young children, the GoPro team revealed that they had recently come to the same conclusion themselves, and that they were in the process of producing an ad campaign aimed at young parents! In addition to her outstanding work in the classroom, Dana has experience in brand development, including logo and album cover design for a variety of clients. Two of her album covers are currently on iTunes! Having lived in Iran, England, and Canada, she has truly appreciated the different people and cultures represented in her classes at SF State. This diversity is one reason she is pursuing her MBA at SF State, while working for the engineering company Fourstep Automation as a marketing consultant. She looks forward to integrating all of her academic and professional experiences in her future career in corporate marketing.
William Chin
Department of Accounting
William is the youngest child of an immigrant family from Myanmar. Like his brother before him, William was taught that a college diploma is the key to professional and personal success, and an opportunity to get ahead. In addition to excelling in the classroom, William was actively involved in a number of student accounting organizations including financial information honorary Beta Alpha Psi, and Ascend. As president of Ascend, a professional association that enables its members to explore the leadership potential of Pan-Asians, William was able to increase membership, making this group one of the largest in the college, and one of the largest Ascend chapters in the country. He also served as a site manager for the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program that provided free tax-filing assistance to over 1,000 low-income families in 2013. In addition to his noteworthy extracurricular activities, he has maintained a high level of academic performance, which earned him a spot on the Dean’s list every semester. As a result of this exceptional work, William was chosen for a coveted Chevron Finance Development Program Summer Analyst internship in 2013, and upon graduation he will begin working as a risk consultant for Deloitte, a global Big Four CPA firm.
Christian Lee
Department of Decision Sciences
Christian is the product of extremely selfless immigrant families from China and the Philippines. As a second generation Asian American, he is grateful for the many opportunities given to him by his parents and grandparents, especially the privilege of education.
When he graduates in May, Christian will become the first in his immediate family to complete a four-year degree. While at San Francisco State, he realized that he loves the process of satiating his intellectual curiosity, and this motivation has resulted in his outstanding academic record. Though proud of his in-class performance, Christian does not think of himself as book smart but instead enjoys the application of the theories he learns in class to his field. Outside of school, Christian works for Serramonte Kumon Center, tutoring high school students in algebra and calculus. He finds it gratifying to mentor students with whom he shares a similar cultural background. Christian is currently applying to the UC Berkeley’s Master of Information and Data Science program, where he hopes to prepare for a career in data science. He loves all things data, and has particular interest in quantitative data analysis, unstructured data, and data visualization. A member of the Sierra Club, Christian believes fervently in our ability to control climate change. He often participates in letter-writing campaigns and local beach cleanups. After college, he plans on becoming even more environmentally active. Christian is thrilled to be the DS department honoree, and would like to thank the entire College of Business faculty for having such a positive impact on his life.
Zane Summers
Department of Economics
Zane is, in many ways, the prototypical San Francisco State University student. He is not a traditional college student but an older student who has pursued diverse studies. Zane is from Los Angeles and the son of a journalist father and librarian mother. He studied music as well as economics in college. Economics is not an easy major. To do well, an economics student requires a difficult combination of skills—writing ability, mathematical skill, and abstract analytic ability to name a few. Yet Zane has distinguished himself in the eyes of the department in all these areas. Economics professors who have had him in class label him one of the best students in their respective classes and the most introspective about economics. Zane has taken classes in econometrics as well as additional classes in mathematics, and still managed to land on the Dean’s list every semester, with a minor in Finance. Zane’s goal is to obtain a Ph.D. in economics, with an interest in culture and economics, and he is working hard to achieve this goal as demonstrated by his challenging class schedule in econometrics and mathematics at SF State. He has recently entered the M.A. in Economics program at SF State where he has begun taking graduate classes. Zane has demonstrated ability that puts him into a select group of students that have gone onto graduate schools in economics, and the Economics department is proud to designate him as their honoree this year.
Michael Song
Department of Finance
Michael has always enjoyed following and playing fantasy sports. The process of picking players based on statistics, character, team and strategy has always appealed to him. The aspect of fantasy sports that he likes most though is convincing people his strategy for putting together a team was better. After learning about investing in a finance class, he saw many parallels between analyzing sports and investments. This connection is what ultimately drew him to studying finance. In addition to his outstanding performance in the classroom, Michael has also learned about leadership, professionalism and success from his involvement in student organization Financial Analysis & Management Education (FAME). Under Michael’s leadership, FAME successfully orchestrated a conference, a summer valuation class and a number of industry speaker panels, however, what he values most from this experience are the relationships he developed with his fellow Finance students. He will never forget the time spent helping colleagues prepare for interviews, revise their resumes and supporting each other through stressful and exciting times, and he realizes that these experiences were crucial to his development and success. As a result of these experiences, Michael is employed by an investment bank in Dallas, where he advises his clients on private equity, secondary transactions and general partner restructurings. In the long-term, Michael would like to work in the venture capital industry or in strategy for an up and coming technology firm.
Devan Lane
Department of Hospitality & Tourism Management
Devan is a fourth-generation San Franciscan who attended high school less than a mile from San Francisco State, and it was there that she was first bitten by the event planning bug, after organizing her senior prom. While starting her college career at the University of Denver, financial challenges caused Devan to return to San Francisco, where she secured an internship at the Hotel Council of San Francisco, and enrolled in San Francisco State’s Hospitality and Tourism Management program. In the perfect intersection of the Bay Area’s two biggest industries, tourism and technology, in her last semester here, Devan landed a much coveted Corporate Events internship at Apple, Inc. In this role she learned from the veteran event planners of media-intensive events such as product launches and the annual World Wide Developers Conference, and she excelled in the role, landing a full-time position at Enterprise Events Group, a premier event planning company that focuses on corporate events for Fortune 500 clients. While it took several schools and a lot of perseverance through an uncertain economy to get her degree, Devan addressed these challenges head-on. And, success has taught her the invaluable life lesson that “setbacks may be disguised as opportunities, so keep your eyes on the prize and continue to strive toward your goals.”
Priya Gupta
Information Systems
Priya is completing her studies in business administration with a concentration in information systems, this spring. After just three years at San Francisco State, Priya has been on the Dean’s List in each of her five semesters here. An accomplished and aspiring individual, she has held five internships and two jobs in several industries, including accounting, communications, and information technology. In her free time, Priya maintains membership in the Information Management Systems Association, Beta Gamma Sigma Honor Society, and Alpha Kappa Psi, the largest and oldest professional fraternity in the world. She also enjoys giving back to the community by volunteering with San Francisco State’s VITA program, preparing taxes for low-income individuals. Priya currently works in the Financial District for a start-up company and plans on working with start-up companies in the future, while continuing her academic career through further schooling.
Martyna Majchrzak
Department of International Business
Martyna came to the United States ten years ago with nothing but a suitcase and a dream. With no support from her family back in Poland, Martyna was forced to work multiple jobs to make ends meet, while taking extra courses each semester. In spite of these challenges, Martyna is graduating at the top of her class, in International Business. Outside of the classroom, Martyna is passionate about doing good for the environment, as well as helping others. Based on her education and personal interests, Martyna’s career goal is to become a business development professional in the non-profit sector and, as her first step toward this goal, she has applied to SF State’s MBA program in sustainable business. Although she is proud of her accomplishments to date, Martyna believes that earning a bachelor’s degree is only the beginning of a lifelong journey of learning. She looks forward to applying everything she has learned at SF State to her future role as a socially responsible professional and world citizen.
Cassandra Carrillo
Labor & Employment Studies Program
Cassandra will graduate in May with a double major in labor and employment studies and sociology. In September she will start work as a researcher with UNI Global Union in Geneva, a position that pays a living wage and provides accommodation, one month’s paid vacation per year and free French, Spanish and German instruction. Cassie will be researching global framework agreements in IT, telecom and communications. She is the third SF State graduate in recent years to work at UNI. For the past two semesters, Cassie interned at the AFL-CIO Center for Strategic Research, where her supervisor said she was the “best intern he has ever had.” This internship involved working with the American Federation of Musicians to devise financial incentives for the film industry to keep musicians’ jobs in California rather than outsourced from overseas. Cassie previously worked as a research assistant for John Logan on a project on global agreements in the retail and logistics sectors. As a community college student, Cassie interned at the San Diego and Imperial Counties Labor Council and American Federation of Teachers. She also helped establish a workers’ rights center for students at San Diego City College. Cassie’s involvement with these organizations provides an outstanding example of the values of community engagement and social justice that are central to the mission of the University. The valuable experience gained from her internships while at SF State also enabled Cassie to obtain exciting opportunities after graduation.
Elizabeth Hamm
Department of Management
Elizabeth didn’t start out to study business. She attended Sacramento State, as a volleyball player, and burned out almost before she started. After spending years on a personal exploration, Liz’s journey brought her back to school at DeAnza College, and ultimately to San Francisco State, where her passion for learning was evident from her outstanding performance in the classroom, and the respect and admiration of faculty and peers alike. One of Liz’s teachers described her as a natural leader, who “in a gentle, kind and respectful way is able to inspire her peers to do better work, think about ideas longer, and deliver quality work.” In one class her team did a comparative analysis between a S.W.A.T. team and rock band that was fascinating! Fellow classmates say Liz “challenges you to be a better student and person.” Liz plans to study sustainable business in SF State’s MBA program starting in the fall. She was drawn to sustainable business because it offers a chance to focus both on the environment and helping people. She hopes to work on the human centered aspects of sustainability and particularly wants to help empower young women to find fulfilling careers. Elizabeth sums up her experience at SF State this way, “These past semesters have taught me the value of education. I’ve grown with and because of the students, faculty, and staff at SF State. My college experience, though later in life, has been more challenging, fulfilling, and rewarding than I could have imagined.”