“That is literally my favorite team, my favorite sport,” Chang said.
A business administration major with a dual concentration in marketing and marketing analytics, Chang said he used Fordham’s connections and his own skills to get an internship at the organization his senior year. Chang worked in the sales department, assisting with different marketing efforts.
“Fordham has a great relationship with the Giants, and they also have a lot of alumni within the Giants,” he said. “I can definitely tell how strong the alumni network is. People talk about how strong it is, but I really felt that.”
Marketing Professor Anthony DeFrancesco wrote Chang his recommendation letter for that internship.
“He thinks I helped him—he helped himself as well,” he said. “He was an enthusiastic student, always raising his hand, always looking to go deeper, stopping me and talking to me after class.”
That Giants internship helped Chang land a job at NBCUniversal as a sales associate, which he will start in mid-July. He’s hoping to put both of his concentrations to work there, since he said he enjoys both the data and creative sides of business.
“You know how people say, ‘oh some people think with the right side of the brain, some people think with the left,’— I’m a little bit of both,” he said. “I like being very analytical and making data-driven decisions. But I also like using my creativity. And I think that advertising and marketing really gave me the best of both worlds.”
Chang said that he was also drawn to marketing in part because of how he and his generation have been raised.
“I feel like my generation has grown up with phones in our faces since day one—we see all these ads,” he said. “So I feel like we have a better general grasp of advertising and marketing and social constructs and (understanding) people.”
At Fordham, Chang was also very involved with sustainability efforts. One of his favorite classes was global sustainability marketing, which Chang said allowed him and his classmates to really have in-depth conversations on challenges across the world.
“We explored a lot of topics from the business and marketing perspective. We’d cover all the logistics and the operations side, such as what’s going on with sustainability marketing, and where we can fix things, but then we also went in depth about modern day slavery within the fashion industry.”
Chang also was an eco-rep for his residence hall on the Sustainability Committee, which was an initiative launched his first year to help each of the buildings become greener and more sustainable. Chang said that he would help put on incentive and reward programs to encourage fellow students to recycle or become more energy efficient.
Outside of business, Chang was involved with the Rose Hill Society, a group through Undergraduate Admission where students serve as tour guides to prospective students, a member of the Fordham University Emerging Leaders Program, and a founding member of the club wrestling team.
“I was at the food place next to (Alumni Court) South, just getting a sandwich and I was wearing my high school wrestling sweatshirt, and some guy in front of me in line was like, ‘Hey did you wrestle in high school? I’m starting a club wrestling team,” he said with a laugh.
What started as just an idea has grown into a team that travels in tournaments, including trips to the University of New Hampshire.
“Not only did we get a lot of experienced really good wrestlers,” Chang said, “but what was also cool was we got a lot of new people who had never wrestled before.”
Chang credits wrestling and his high school football team with helping him develop his work ethic.
“Before I really started playing sports seriously, my work ethic was kind of bad, but (playing) the sports that you struggle in the most are the ones that build character,” he said.
