An entrepreneurial spirit led Bellal Labanieh, political science senior, to UCI. As a young boy, he remembers selling candy at school and hosting mini-garage sales to unload old toys for a profit.

“I wanted to come to UCI because it is one of the fastest growing UCs out there,” he says. “It is a wonderful feeling seeing the development of the school since my freshman year and I know that UCI will continue to grow and rival some of the major universities.”

Since coming to UCI from Villa Park High School, Labanieh put his energy into the Undergraduate Finance Association which he currently heads as president. He interned with Harvey & Co., Johnson & Johnson and Broadcom to further develop his leadership and business skills. He also started a company with friends called Spawnd which provides on online platform for gamers to accumulate points for exclusive discounts and promotions.

He is this year’s recipient of a $2,000 Boukai Family Foundation scholarship.

Upon graduating, he plans to start his professional career as a financial analyst with Johnson & Johnson in their medical devices division with hopes of one day starting his own venture capital firm.