“I did a lot of different internships, met new people and had new experiences in different industries that I didn’t really know much about,” he said. “I found what was appealing to me.”
Firkser works for Lending Loop, Canada’s first financial service to provide peer-to-peer loans to small business. As a representative, he gets to talk to clients daily, while still crunching numbers. He said the role combines his interest in both people and data, a relationship he learned about during his studies.
Ryan Firkser
“Prof. David Green was incredible in reminding us that a lot of the data that we look at have people behind it,” said Firkser. “He was structural in instilling value in myself. He helped me consider the fact that there is a social responsibility within economics to humanize the quantitative side of my job, and to acknowledge that our decisions affect real lives.”
Firkser’s advice to current BIE students is to network, even if it seems intimidating, and to not let the stress of school work or a job search be all consuming.
“If I could go back, I would tell myself to just take it a bit easier and understand that everything does work out,” he said.
