Work ethic and determination take graduating senior to Wall Street

Like most first-year students, Chidinma Chigozie-Nwosu was undecided on her major. “I liked math and communicating, so I was thinking about becoming a math teacher,” Chigozie-Nwosu said. She is a first-generation immigrant and the first person in her family to pursue any career in finance, but she figured she would give Rutgers Business School (RBS) a try for a semester.

She had been accepted into the Business Student Transition Access & Retention Program (B-STAR), an award-winning and credit-bearing program designed to support high-performing and high-potential students from historically underrepresented and underserved backgrounds who have accepted admission to RBS. She met Serena Simpkins through B-STAR, who spoke to the cohort about a Rutgers University student organization: Little Investment Bankers of Rutgers (LIBOR). This was a watershed moment in Chigozie-Nwosu’s Rutgers experience: Simpkins soon became her mentor. 

“Serena and I connected right away, and she encouraged me to take advantage of all the RBS resources,” Chigozie-Nwosu said. “She believed in me, and I learned to believe in myself.”

Simpkins encouraged Chigozie-Nwosu to apply to the Road to Wall Street program. “I was so excited to be accepted into the program. Professor Kenneth Freeman was an amazing professor, and he guided all of us toward internship possibilities. I learned about the organization Girls Who Invest (GWI) from Professor Freeman,” Chigozie-Nwosu said. 

GWI works to diversify the finance management industry by widening the perspectives, experiences, and investment approaches to the profession for the benefit of women, finance teams, firms, and investors. The non-profit places over 200 scholars in front-line investing internships annually, and over seventy percent of the placements remain in finance.

Chigozie-Nwosu said, “I learned a great deal in the GWI program." The experience led to a summer internship with Morgan Stanley and in May, she will start working full-time on Wall Street at Morgan Stanley as a wealth management rotational analyst.

By her third year at Rutgers, Chigozie-Nwosu began giving back to the programs that shaped her experience and afforded her valuable opportunities. She mentored sophomores and juniors in the Women BUILD and the Road to Wall Street programs. For the Pre-College Enrichment Program (PREP), she mentored high school juniors interested in applying to RBS. 

“Learning and growing through all my RBS experiences, the opportunities these programs provided, and working with students from every background showed me that diversity is a superpower. The range of perspectives, ideas, and experiences at Rutgers Business School are truly empowering.

"Your dreams are not too big. Believe in yourself and use all the resources available to you,” Chigozie-Nwosu said.

Read Chidinma Chigozie-Nwosu’s profile in Poets & Quants 2024 Best & Brightest Business Major: Chidinma Chigozie-Nwosu.