Success Story: Alexandra Aloe ’21 secures J.P. Morgan sales and trading internship

Success Stories | Apr 30, 2019 | admin

By Kelly Anderson

While many freshmen may consider themselves too inexperienced to compete for internships, finance major Alexandra Aloe was able to secure a J.P. Morgan sales and trading 2019 internship during her first year at Fordham.

“I was just a little freshman,” Aloe, BS ’21, says. “And the girls of the Smart Woman Securities club were so helpful to me every step of the way.”

Smart Woman Securities (SWS) is a campus club in which Aloe participates as the senior analyst. Businesswomen visit the club to share their career stories, and students make virtual stock portfolios to compete against other SWS university chapters.

Before her interviews for J.P. Morgan, the students in SWS reviewed Aloe’s résumé and helped her prepare through talking points and advice. “With their help, I felt like I could hold my own against others, despite being the only freshman in the program. I guess it’s just that Fordham Jesuit community or sisterhood,” she says.

At her internship, Aloe will work alongside an analyst selling or executing trade at J.P. Morgan. She applied to the internship through the Winning Women program, a diversity program at the company that women could apply to directly. Aloe says the interview process was more intense than she anticipated, but the women of SWS were her “guiding light.”

Aloe first became interested in economics while a student at Mount Saint Mary Academy in Watchung, New Jersey. “I’m from Central New Jersey, which yes, does exist,” she jokes. She studied AP economics with a “fantastic teacher” and, after attending an SWS seminar at Fordham, realized that economics was the perfect combination of her interests: current events and math.

Looking to the future, Aloe says, “I just hope I’m at a job where I’m happy and I fit in with their company culture. But right now I see myself in sales and trading.”

Now that she has experienced interviews, her advice to other freshmen is to “be confident and be yourself. Because if you get to the interview, you’re just as smart and capable as everyone applying.”

There are many ways to achieve success, but Aloe is proof that students can thrive off of the community. “I was driven to apply to the program because so many people at Gabelli ‘hustle.’ I’m thankful to be in such an environment where people have that drive,” she shares.