Alumni: Simon Holme Øien

A new addition to the blog this year is the alumni network. I have, and will continue to interview several professionals who graduated from La Salle. Here in the blog you can read summaries from the interviews and gain inspiration for where the degree obtained at La Salle can take you. 

Yet another alumnus I have been in touch with is Simon Holme øyen. Simon is from Norway, he is 26 years old and now works as a finance and program consultant for Instidata AS in Norway When Simon graduated he knew that he wanted to work with finance. He first started to work in accounting and viewed this as a step towards his finance dream. After two years of accounting related work, he finally achieved his dream of working in finance. He sees the fact that he gets to work with computer problems, as well as finance, as a big bonus. He was not sure that he would be able to work with the combination of these two fields. However, he has realized that he really enjoys this combination and is now really happy with his job. Simon normally gets to the office around 8 every morning. He first checks his company email and replies when required. Apart from the email communication, he has two main tasks. One is related to finance and the other is related to computer programs. Simon helps the clients with finance queries such as questions related to liquidity, depreciation, VAT and EU regulations for research facilities. He is also responsible for helping the clients to get the reports or the financial overview that they request. He is also contributing to the creation of new computer programs and to updating existing programs to facilitate the best possible working environment for the clients. In addition, he answers questions concerning programs that the company has already made. When I asked Simon how his knowledge from La Salle has helped him in his professional career, he answered that the many presentations he had to do while studying at La Salle has been most useful. In his company, he is responsible for many presentations and forums, both to gather information and to teach the clients about how their computer systems and programs work. He believes that if he had not practiced his presentation skills throughout his years at La Salle, he would not have been able to do this very well. The only tip Simon would like to share with the current La Salle students is to enjoy the time, because it passes really quickly.

If you would like to know more about Simon, you can check out his LinkedIn profile here.