Mian Ahmad Shah, C’24

International student, finance major, future Wall Street analyst

Where I come from in Pakistan there is little access to education beyond the equivalent of sophomore year in high school, so I moved to Islamabad to accept a scholarship for my last two years of high school. It was a big deal relocating to the capital to continue my education, but during that process, I thought, “If I can come to the capital on my own, what’s stopping me from going to the U.S.?” Then two years later, I came here and it opened the world for me. I had a similar realization: “If I can come to Sewanee on my own, I can go wherever I want. If I want to go to Wall Street, let’s go to Wall Street.” So I decided to pair my finance major with the business and computer science minors and to start searching for internships. I began going to as many Career Readiness events as I could.

I met Alonso [Munoz, C’17] at a networking event first semester. It was amazing. I got to sit down and have coffee with the chief investment officer of an Atlanta wealth management firm. Five months later, applications for an internship at his firm opened up. When I came in for my interview, we already knew each other, and that was helpful. I was already aware of the way he ran the firm, how he served his clients, who those clients were, and what the company was looking for in an intern. He already knew me and was familiar with the organizations I was involved with on campus. At the very end of the interview they just asked, “Will you be able to figure out housing in Atlanta?” That’s when I knew I’d sealed the deal.

I’ve been incredibly lucky this summer. It’s a volatile time in the market, and I am getting to see—in real time—the cause of that volatility. Seeing how the market is responding to things—the fallout of the pandemic and its impact on global supply chain, the Russian invasion and its impact on worldwide energy and food supplies—that no one has ever really seen before. I started a month ago and I’ve already seen some of the worst scenarios play out. It’s a time when clients are calling and asking, “What is happening?” And I am on the ground, shadowing Alonso and seeing exactly how a wealth management firm reacts to these unprecedented global events. This has been an amazing time to enter the market and I am learning so much. It’s a huge step toward getting that job on Wall Street.