As Wall Street 101  approaches on September 20, the CDC spoke with Faisal Namanya '20, who is double majoring in Management & Business and Economics.   An active participant in career development programming throughout his time at Skidmore, Faisal shares how his engagement with the CDC helped him land a job offer the summer before his senior year.

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My name is Faisal Namanya and I am an international student from Busia, Uganda. This summer, I had the opportunity to participate in MUFG Bank’s Corporate, Investment Banking and Markets (CIB&M) 10-week internship program where I worked with the Securitized Products team to help companies underwrite debt using their assets as collateral. At the end of the program, I was offered to return as a full-time analyst in the same group.

I got to know of this opportunity through Handshake the previous fall when I was looking for summer internships. However, the journey to this internship didn’t start just from that application. Since my freshman year, I had been taking courses, attending events, talking to alumni and other professionals about the finance/banking industry.

Some of my favorite events include Wall Street 101, Consulting 101 and Career Jam (though there are many more), where students get an opportunity to learn not only about different industries, but also companies' application processes and requirements. These events are also always followed by spaces where you can network directly with the speakers.  I urge everyone to take full advantage of these events especially when it comes to networking. In my experience, after keeping in constant touch with an alumnus and sharing my goals with them, they were happy to point me in the right direction and even offered to help with interview preparation. 

I am grateful to Skidmore for all the resources it has provided me in the quest to build my professional career.

Do you hope to connect with Skidmore alumni?  Wall Street 101 takes place Friday, September 20 and is open to all class years and majors.  Sign up here. 

Skidmore students can also find alumni and parents from a variety of industries by searching Skidmore's Career Advisor Network. Check it out!