SXU Alum Aspires to Help Others Achieve Dreams
Saint Xavier University (SXU) alum Norberto Ramos '16, '20 is in the business of helping others achieve their dreams – and he gets to do it while being immersed in the field of baseball every day!
For his undergraduate career at Saint Xavier, Ramos studied finance and minored in computer science. He returned to earn an MBA, graduating in 2020.
Since graduating from SXU, he's been involved in the sports field, starting off working as a ticket sales intern with the Chicago White Sox before becoming the graduate communications coordinator and assistant baseball coach at SXU. He also served as a player development intern with the Washington Nationals and the summer program coordinator at ASPIRA of Illinois. During baseball off-season, he worked for the Chicago Bulls as an alumni community relations associate. Currently, Ramos serves as a player development fellow for the Chicago Cubs as well as coach and website developer for BIG Baseball Academy.
"I really enjoy that my office is a place where people play a game for a living. I am living out a childhood dream working for the Cubs!" said Ramos.
Ramos is grateful to Saint Xavier for preparing him for his professional future.
"I really challenged myself while at SXU by being involved in athletics, student employment and numerous clubs and organizations, which has given me a huge advantage and taught me a lot about managing different projects and tasks," said Ramos.
While on campus, Ramos played baseball and was in the Honors Program. He served as a member of UNIDOS, a staff moderator for ALPFA, and and led service trips to Belize and West Virginia. He also participated in Campus Ministry and attended Mass on Sunday nights.
Ramos enjoyed that SXU allowed for more intimate learning, as the smaller class sizes really helped him to get to know his professors and learn from their experiences in the professional world. He especially appreciated Professor [Song] Wang from the Graham School of Management, who had fun with the class and showed students that finance isn't just numbers and calculators.
Ramos was initially drawn to business after his calculus teacher encouraged him to go into finance as he was one of the only students to ever ace the course's midterm and final. SXU was a natural choice, as his mother had graduated from the institution and he got to attend at the same time as his cousin.
He's pleased to use the skills he gained at SXU in his current career, especially when it comes to problem-solving and critical thinking.
"Baseball is an ever-changing sport both on and off the field. Trying to understand how much goes into getting players to the major leagues is impossible to understand from the outside looking in. But what I love most is that I get to be in the business of solving problems and helping people achieve their dreams while attempting to make an organization's fanbase happy and keep it growing," said Ramos.
Ramos plans to continue to working in baseball and hopes to eventually work his way up to become a farm director, where he will oversee the entire minor league operations of an organization.