Burritos to Bond Valuation to Bun Bo Hue - My GWI Application Journey
Exploring Houston’s criminally-underrated food scene was just the appetizer to an unforgettable summer. At team lunches, I chowed down on buttery cornettos, ocean-fresh shrimp-and-crab ciabatta sandwiches, and spicy, mouthwatering bun bo hue. Back at the office, I listened to my colleagues debate methods to model portfolio returns at team meetings. I investigated emerging market currencies using statistical methods. In August, I even presented my project to investors at the Houston and Hong Kong offices.
Before the summer started, I never would have imagined that I could complete a 4 week investing bootcamp and 7 week asset management internship. My career confidence was nonexistent.
But Girls Who built it up through continuous practice. At Penn, I learned finance concepts I never would have otherwise as a CS major. Then, I applied these skills through the GWI-matched internship with Invesco. As a result, my previously hazy career goals came into sharp focus. On the road trip home to California, I realized: I wanted to be a professional investor.
Freshman Summer
As a rising sophomore, however, I had no clue what I wanted to do. GWI was one of many programs on my eclectic list, which also included several exploratory software engineering internships, a science policy internship, and research programs in data science and digital humanities through Duke. Career-wise, I was all over the place.
However, I did have inklings about my specific academic interests. My Economics 101 professor would introduce new topics using Wall Street Journal articles, and I realized that I liked following business news .
I also did some stock pitches through business clubs. I knew through high school history courses that I liked to connect seemingly unrelated evidence to craft a coherent thesis. But I didn’t know that stock pitches involved similar skills. Thus, these presentations piqued my curiosity in investments.
I knew what I liked, but I didn’t know what to do about that. As a Bay Area native, most of my friends from high school went on to work as software engineers or data scientists. I couldn’t see myself thriving in those positions, but I saw few other options.
I wasn’t sure if investment was the right place for me either. As far as I knew, investors were men from New York who studied economics or finance, or older tech workers with oodles of stock options -- not that I knew what those were.
Later at Duke, I assumed that the main route into investments was through banking, and that the buy-side was essentially off-limits until my mid-20s. I was skeptical whether there was space for someone like me in investment.
Application and Acceptance
I decided to apply anyway, because I was hungry for clarity. I treated the GWI application as a chance, no matter how slim, to explore one of my many academic interests.
Given my minimal knowledge of finance, I didn’t try to show off experience I didn’t have. Instead, I wrote about things I liked, such as technology policy and compare-and-contrast history essays, as well as things I loved — Chipotle burritos, lifting, and my friends that inspire me to take the time to be kind to both others and yourself. I hoped that my willingness to learn would shine through the topics that made me happy.
When I found out about my acceptance, I was thrilled, then terrified. I worried that I didn’t have the right academic background, or that I was the wrong personality fit for this industry.
GWI upended these presumptions. I saw firsthand in my SIP cohort, in the speaker panels, and in my internship that all types of people can work in investment. At Penn, other scholars’ majors ran the gamut: History, Communications, Math, Engineering, and Literature. At speaker panels, women in senior leadership positions opened up about early career challenges with public speaking or shyness in meetings, which seemed incongruous with their larger-than-life personas. They taught me that I don’t have to be perfect, so long as I work to overcome my shortcomings like they did. At team meetings, some of my colleagues were certainly chattier than others. However, in one-on-one conversations, I learned that all of them were deeply knowledgeable about their respective asset classes -- their outward personality had no bearing on their ability to do good work.
I still don’t know how an essay about mass-market burritos led me to Tex-Mex team lunches with a caring, hospitable, and whip-smart team of investors. But I hope it is proof of the importance of being true to yourself no matter what. It is also proof of Girls Who Invest’s ability to recognize this principle by planting scholars where they will bloom.
Application Advice For Girls Who Invest
If you’re reading this, you’re probably curious about investment, which is more than enough to apply. My biggest piece of advice would be to lean into that gut feeling, and go for it! You know yourself best, and that gut feeling tells you that you could offer something special to the investments industry.
Now, it’s your job to show it. My writing tips include:
Be true to your interests
Do you love data visualization? Or graphic design? Or British literature? Just because an interest doesn’t relate to investment does not mean it’s invalid. In fact, you never know how these skills might give you an investing edge.
There is tons of space for different interests in investments, even if these interests seem completely unrelated to accounting and finance. From speed-reading earnings reports to building statistical models to predict bond movements to designing informative powerpoint decks, there’s something for everyone.
Curiosity and creativity no matter the form will take you far, and writing about something that dazzles you will make your application dazzle too.
Have fun and be happy
I wrote my essays with my two younger siblings. I would type and think aloud -- sometimes they were quiet, but usually they would roast me and my out-there Chipotle salsa descriptions. We would write, joke, and laugh. As a result, writing my application felt less like a chore and more like family bonding time.
I hope that the joy I felt while spending time with my family is reflected in my writing -- emotions that are much harder to evoke when I work alone at Starbucks. The best writing environment is the one where you feel most like yourself, and the right words will follow.
Final Words:
I learned that confidence isn’t given, it’s earned.
Before the program started, I thought if I wasn’t 110% confident that I was a girl who invested, I was a fraud. When the summer ended, I realized that I had gained confidence after doing the hard thing.
And GWI is not easy. It’s scary to learn months of finance in 4 weeks, it’s scary to live on your own in a city, it’s scary to juggle long work weeks with cooking, cleaning, and sleeping as a college student. But finishing the summer is incredibly rewarding.
Girls Who Invest lifted me from my bubbles - my Bay Area tech-centric bubble, my Duke bubble, and my own bubble of self-doubt. Without Girls Who Invest, I might have only seen a small snippet of future investments professionals at my school only -- and I never would have met all these diverse, amazing personalities who have shown me what is possible.
