A conversation with Ryan Abdullah

Ryan Abdullah PhotoBy Mariana Velasco

In my free time I just like to watch hours and hours of videos on documentaries, random facts on how things work, learning about airplanes, or Middle Eastern politics.

The Basics: Ryan is a junior concentrating in Finance and targeting Arabic with an extremely wide range of interests that go from physics and business to music and politics, which showcases his naturally curious personality. With his mom coming from France and his dad from Texas but originally from the Middle East, he has lived in Houston; Brest, France; Kuwait; and Saudi Arabia. Next semester, he is doing his semester abroad in London at the School of Oriental and African Studies.

Stellar phrases:

“Huntsman to get the free snacks. My favorite is the peanut butter bar”

“If I wasn’t in Huntsman, I would have done a dual-degree in Computer Science and Electronics Engineering” “You know Professor Drew, I will be honest with you, History 107 is one of my favorite classes so far…”

What did you discover at Penn? Recently I have been trying to explore my new interest for music, I just think that expressing my emotions through art is very cool. I feel like you can get very lost at Penn, you know, not having time for deep conversations anymore or taking classes just for an easy grade –in my opinion that is just cheating yourself. I think that it is sad and I don’t want that to happen to me, I learned that freshman year. In fact, I would tell my freshman self not to try so much to fit in, college is supposed to be about finding what you like.

How do you relate that to finance? I really liked my internship in growth equity last summer. Growth Equity to me is a good balance between entrepreneurship and also the financial side. It is super interesting because you can leverage random facts that you know to invest in new companies. It is the kind of job where you are working in thirty different deals in so many categories, which was really interesting to me since I am curious about so many things – it is such a cool job. I just lose myself in it.

What would you define as a good use of your time? Exploring stuff that you are not comfortable with, meeting new people, just trying new things. Having deep conversation without taking care of time, or looking at your cell phone. I am not the best at finding time, but you have to. I want to read more for pleasure, teach myself more things on my own, and spend more time with friends.

Huntsman to Huntsman Student Tip: If I had one tip for huntsman it would be to call your mom frequently, I call mine everyday!

We are looking for passionate writers! If you want to interview another fellow Huntsmantie or write an article for the Huntsman student blog reach out to marianav@wharton.upenn.edu