UMD AMA Gala

This week, UMD AMA hosted its first semi annual AMA Gala, highlighting a professional panel, membership recognition award ceremony, and networking reception. The panel of professionals featured five professionals offering advice from different industries, including Jayanti Nessiar, Director of Messaging Products at Marriott International; Mark Weiss, former Captain and Aviation Analyst at American Airlines; Adam Zimet, Deputy Comptroller at DARPA; University of Maryland alum Solida Heng, Branch Manager at TD Bank Gaithersburg; and Lu Huang, Branch Manager at TD Bank Beltsville. The panel responds to AMA’s questions, sharing useful guidance and perspectives with students and members.

What is the career path or unexpected moment that led you to where you are today?

Solida Heng

“Where I came from, English is not our first language,” says Heng. “I came here 20 years ago [from Cambodia] and started learning English from scratch.” Heng describes her journey starting high school over in the United States, before enrolling in College Park while working two separate jobs.

Jayanti Nessiar

“My native language is also not English but we did learn English as we were growing up,” says Nessiar. She “started working at a bank and decided it wasn’t my cup of tea” before transitioning to Public Relations, before finally “something clicked” in email 

Mark Weiss

Weiss explains that he wanted to be a pilot since he was five years old, and it was one of those fantasies he never really grew out of. He found that “you get rejected a lot” but “in life, you have to prepare yourself for the opportunities to have more than one path. “When you have a dream,” he says, “follow it, but always be prepared to take a different path and make other dreams come true for yourselves.”

What has been your favorite project or thing you’ve worked on?

Mark Weiss

“The thing I look back on the most was probably one of the saddest days in history,” Weiss says, remembering the eight friends he lost on 9/11. He explains that his proudest activity is never having to see that again.

What has been one of the greatest challenges you’ve had to overcome?

Adam Zimet

“Our responsibility is developing technology to prevent things like 9/11,” Zimet says, adding onto Weiss’s point. “One of our challenges was how do we react to this,” he says, in ways such as finding innovative companies to do research to prevent anything like it.

Solida Heng

Heng discusses other challenges she’s had to overcome, explaining that being a VP in the bank, you have to deal with a lot of employees. In dealing with such personalities, “our job is to help our people grow,” she offers.

How does your company support internships?

Solida Heng

Heng explains that unfortunately, TD Bank doesn’t offer many internships in the retail side. That being said, she recommends starting to look for internships now, rather than waiting for an opportunity in the future.

Adam Zimet

DARPA, on the other hand, has a lot of internships according to Zimet. He, too, suggests applying early and often, and even reaching out to federal or state agencies by email.

Mark Weiss

American Airlines has many internships, Weiss explains, just not really for pilots. That being said, there are positions you can work into within the corporate structure.

Jayanti Nessiar

Many internships are offered at Marriott headquarters, Nessiar explains, and they usually open up around September or October. She agrees that professionals are very open to cold emails, and a lot of times it comes down to being at the right place at the right time.

In college we take a lot of random classes, what is one thing that you wish schools taught more of?

Adam Zimet

“They don’t teach anything at all about working in the federal government,” Zimet says, which is unfortunate because it happens to be one of the biggest employers in the DC region. He also notes that schools rarely teach students how to write proposals or work under “broad direction,” which can be challenging for beginners who are focused on doing everything the  “right” way.

Jayanti Nessiar

The main thing Nessiar wishes she learned more about in school was negotiations. “Everything that you do at work is a negotiation,” she explains, whether through group work where “some of you carry more load than others,” or situations where you “negotiate where you want to land.”

Mark Weiss

“One of the things that really is critical is learning how to listen,” Weiss says. Both in the cockpit and in life, listening matters, as does “learning how to think [and] work well with your colleagues.”

Solida Heng

Heng, a University of Maryland alum, recalls that college has a communications class which is the “main thing that you deal with every day” when working with “employees and then customers.” “Learn[ing] how to think, [and] how to listen” is the key to working with colleagues and as a manager.

With AI being such a large part of our lives, how has it changed the industry?

Adam Zimet

AI is scary, Zimet says, because we don’t know how it’s going to change work. “When I was in college it was the internet” that created the same uncertainty.

Jayanti Nessiar

Nessiar takes the opposite stance from Zimet, stating that “we are really excited about AI” to use it for managing emails, responses, transcriptions and notes. “It’s been life changing for some of us who hate writing notes,” she says.

Mark Weiss

They’re talking about having a single pilot on cargo airplanes, Weiss says, illustrating how AI is being used in training pilots and accessing weather. Specifically, he cites his part time instructor position at a flight simulator in Montgomery mall, explaining how technology has changed how pilots are trained.

Lu Huang

Huang explains that she had an experience earlier in the year where she plugged in incomes and AI gave her the number with missing information. “I think it’s just replacing some routine tasks,” she says, “I don’t think it can replace bankers because it forces us to be more human, build the trust, the relationship, the empathy with our customers.”

You are all graduates of different times, how did the job market compare to the way it is now?

Jayanti Nessiar

Nessiar explains that she graduated when finances crashed in 2008. Luckily, however, she was in the right place at the right time because her internship turned into a full time position. Sometimes you have to do things you don’t want to do, she says, because it can help you learn things in the future.

Adam Zimet

When Zimet graduated, he felt extremely anxious about working. He recommends taking a breath because things will work out.

Mark Weiss

“The job market always fluctuates in this industry,” Weiss reveals. It’s important to be realistic and have other career paths because it can be very difficult to get a job.

Lu Huang

Huang’s branch, located in Silver Supreme mall, actually closed two weeks ago. Many bankers and managers lost jobs, however, Huang was actually offered a promotion to a switch to a bigger branch. She recommends always being on the lookout for a job, and constantly strive to prove yourself.

How do you all approach networking and building relationships?

Adam Zimet

“Every single thing you do at work is building your reputation,” Zimet explains. They won’t want to get rid of the people willing to get their hands dirty; “it’s a community” and as you move up, the world shrinks.

Jayanti Nessiar

Nessiar says that Obama once advised being a problem solver who comes to the table with solutions rather than more problems. In doing so, you will open up more opportunities for yourself to tackle more problems in the future.

Solida Heng

Heng says networking has two parts: communicating and revealing “who I am.” She adds that the purpose is to share the experiences we’ve gained, just like the panel is by joining us today.

Mark Weiss

Weiss agrees that networking is incredibly important. If you’re going for a position within the airline industry, it’s very strict, but it is important to “put yourself out, [to] become somebody that people want to talk with,” “Maintain your credibility, your honesty and your integrity,” Weiss advises, “because that’s going to be attached to you forever.”

Thank you to all of our professionals for sharing such valuable insights and guidance! And a huge thank-you to our members, as well as the RedBlack interns, Directors, and Executive Board, for an incredible year.

-Ashley Morrison