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.

As a systems engineer, math major, nuclear reactor operator and mother of two small children, there isn’t much that Kenyetta Barnes fears. Except, she laughs, quantitative subjects, like accounting and finance, despite her strong math background. “Accounting and math are completely different,” she says. “I always had this fear of those types of classes.”

By Shadee Nowrouzi Completing the Ironman is hard enough as is. Now imagine taking on the challenge with Type 1 diabetes. Lauren Dahlin, a PhD student in information systems at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business, completed her first full Ironman triathlon on Sept. 28, 2018, in Cambridge, Md. The race, which consists of a 2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike ride and 26.2-mile run, is considered one of the most challenging sporting events in the world.

Marriott International executive Falisha Alie knew she wanted to work in the hospitality industry when she started college in the 1990s. “It seemed quite glamorous,” she says.  Even before she finished her undergraduate degree at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business, she landed her first position at Marriott. “Working in hospitality is so fun, and the people at Marriott are great,” she says.

As an accounting major during his undergraduate studies at the University of Central Florida, Christopher Rolle wanted to jumpstart his career as a certified public accountant by starting graduate school immediately. He also wanted to try something completely different, having spent his whole life in Florida, so he thought he’d try out the Washington, D.C., area for its history, culture and even its unpredictable winters.

When Jyoti Sardana started the part-time MBA program at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business, she never anticipated she would be working alongside professional athletes before her graduation in December 2018. “I knew I wanted a graduate degree, and I was taking a few tests to get my security licenses so I could trade,” says Sardana, who worked as a registered associate at Morgan Stanley when she started the evening program at Maryland Smith’s Shady Grove campus in Rockville, Md.

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.

Hayley Smith ’15, MS ’18 has not yet graduated from the Master of Science in Accounting program at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business. But already she has people coming to her for tax advice.

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.

Before classes even began at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business in fall 2018, senior Julian Colicchio could breathe easy, knowing he already has a job lined up when he graduates. Colicchio, a double major in finance and operations management business analytics, received an offer from Johnson & Johnson after a summer internship with the medical device, pharmaceutical and consumer products company.