By Meredith Cobb Gabrielle Bianchi ’18, MS ’19, is a firm believer in seizing opportunities. Within three years at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business, she finished a double major in accounting and information systems, got involved in Greek life and club activities, and earned citations in the College Park Scholars and QUEST honors programs.

Zoha Tariq ’19 is the kind of person who has always had a clear vision of her goals and aspirations. “Ever since I was a little girl, I was enamored with the idea of being an independent woman working in the financial world,” Tariq says. “When I moved to Maryland from Chicago four years ago, I knew a well-applied accounting degree would work as my roadmap to success.”

By Meredith Cobb New Jersey native Jenna Steckler ’94 is not afraid of change. It usually starts with simple intuition, she says, a “little voice” that suggests it might be time for something new. The description helps to explain how she graduated with a marketing degree from the University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of Business and now, 25 years later, runs her own interior design firm that recently remodeled the Sigma Delta Tau house near campus in College Park.

Passion for math and science led Russell Wermers to a career in chemical engineering. His transition to finance came later, when he enrolled in an MBA program and discovered the need for quantitative rigor in a frontier industry with high potential for innovation.

A passion for finance started with a 1980s television series for Marwin Glenn ’17, MS ’19. “I used to watch Family Ties with Michael J. Fox,” says Glenn, a Master of Finance candidate with an undergraduate degree in international business. “He was always focused on his end goal, being successful.” Glenn liked the mindset, so he started investing when he joined the U.S. Marine Corps in 2005. “I bought in securities just to get a little experience,” he says.

Recalling his early years in northern New Jersey, Joseph P. Bailey describes a teen wearing gold chains, a mullet haircut and plotting for a career to make a lot of money. “I blended right in to the 1980s cultural scenery,” he says.

Different environments pose different challenges, which is why international business developer Rashida Petersen ’03 says seeking information about local contexts is more important than ever. As the founder and CEO of 1847 Philanthropic, a Washington D.C.-based consulting firm specializing in the financial stability of organizations in developing countries, Petersen takes a “first, do no harm” approach to her work.

During Parker Rist’s freshman year, a senior at the Robert H. Smith School of Business inspired him to go into finance. The older student was headed toward a finance career and spoke about it daily, and Rist began seeing himself pursuing a similar career path. “Coming in, I had an idea that I wanted to pursue one of the more technical majors because that’s the way I am — very numbers-oriented and analytical,” Rist says. Talking with his mentor and becoming vice president of finance for Smith’s undergraduate student association during his sophomore year solidified the decision.

Erica Sandidge '19 understood that a career in sports management would be competitive. After all, she had applied to nearly 50 internships during her freshman and sophomore years at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business. It wasn’t until she was working for the Washington Capitals and was on the other side of the hiring process that she realized just how competitive it could be.

Former Terrapin golfer George Bradford, a 1997 graduate of the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business, had a quick response when people told him to “get a job” after college. “I have a job,” he told the skeptics. “I’m a professional golfer.”