Finance Student Spotlight

Mason Pullum

(B.S. Finance, Accounting and Economics ’25)

Leadership: President, Financial Management Association at FSU

Internship: Flowers Foods

About his interest in finance: Ever since high school, I knew I wanted to go into finance. My high school’s finance magnet program taught us financial accounting as freshmen, finance including time value of money (TVM), the capital asset pricing model (CAPM), cost of capital and stock valuation as sophomores, personal finance as juniors and microeconomics and macroeconomics as seniors. This experience ignited my interest in finance and gave me a business- knowledge foundation that put me ahead in my classes at FSU.

About his FSU experience: I started as an accounting major when I first registered for classes. About two weeks into my freshman year, however, I joined the Financial Management Association at FSU, and some convincing upper classmen persuaded me to switch my major to finance. I also realized that courses in economics would enhance my education. The more theoretical aspects of economics have given me a broader set of thinking tools to apply to my finance learning, among other things. On top of this, through help from friends in the accounting department, I added accounting as a third major to improve my accounting know-how and my acumen in financial statement analysis.  

About his significant milestones at FSU: I would say I have three big ones so far. The first would be my work in the Financial Management Association (FMA). Through my time as vice president last year and president this year, FMA has taught me many valuable lessons in leadership, work ethic and perseverance. Coordinating many of the events and activities FMA is involved with is hard work, and we still have much to accomplish. The second milestone would be my win with Cole Clemons in the Student Managed Investment Fund Stock Pitch Competition at the University of Georgia. The work pushed Cole and me to our limits and required us to step out of our comfort zone in many respects. The third milestone is my internship at Flowers Foods, where I worked in the Transformation Office to help the business think strategically through in-store marketing and trailer utilization. This experience drew on my knowledge of data analytics and Excel, both of which I have honed as an FSU finance major. 

Advice for students: I would advise anyone who wants to achieve something to ensure that it is valuable or worthwhile to you, and to apply yourself fully to it. If you do not value what you want to achieve, when you dig deep for the motivation to work hard at it, you will not find it. Whether academic pursuits or internships, pursue things you are excited about and interested in. Internships are as much for discovering what you don’t want to do as they are for finding what you do want to do. Getting internships has a lot to do with connections. If the people who are hiring you trust you and know you will work hard, that puts you ahead of most candidates. The trick, of course, is to prove those two qualities to them before they hire you. Finally, get involved, and when opportunity knocks, open the door.