FIU Business Students Present Skills in New York City

By: Isaiah Stewart / Contributing Writer

This month 16 FIU students embarked to New York City to meet with top executives on Wall Street. The Global Scholars program is an annual trip funded by former alumni Eric and Sandra Maldonado. 

This was the fourth year of the program, which aims to introduce a select group of FIU’s most promising business students to prominent alumni and executives of top financial institutions in the city. 

“What motivated us was the desire to increase the awareness of opportunities in New York City for graduating FIU business students,” said Maldonado. “We also wanted to give students real visibility to world-class businesses, to help them make their career goals more tangible.”

This year’s trip included visits to Maldonado’s IHS Markit, J.P. Morgan, NBA, and even included on-site interviews with investment management powerhouse Blackrock.

Juan Ruiz, director of the career services office noted that over 200 applicants applied for this year’s program, and 16 students were selected.

They were selected based on the quality of their resume, essay, and overall GPA.

One of the scholars, Valeria Sanchez, a junior majoring in marketing, had nothing but praise for Mr. Maldonado

“Great personality and a great mind. His words were really inspiring and motivational to keep focusing on achieving our goals. He started at FIU and ended up being a great leader in the New York business industry. I remember that one of my peers asked him why he decided to give back to FIU and Mr. Maldonado’s answer was ‘I got lucky.’”

Sanchez said the trip also helped her explore other fields in the industry that helped her expand her knowledge and interests on the career path she wants to focus on. 

“No program at FIU exposes students to high-level c-suite executives in New York City the way the Maldonado Global Scholars does for FIU Business students. I would recommend students polish up their resume, get assistance from the Office of Business Career Management and apply for the Maldonado Global Scholars trip next year sometime in August/September,” said Sanchez.