International Student Success Stories
Finance Major Lands Job on Wall Street
Dang Pham ’14 (finance) proved that persistence pays off. During his senior year at Minnesota State University Moorhead, he sent 2,000 emails showing his interest in the field of investment banking. Of those, only one was answered, and it just happened to be from the hub of all things finance—Wall Street.
An international student from Viet Nam, Pham spent three years at MSUM before landing a position as an investment banking analyst at UBS Investment Bank in New York City.
“Only about 20 out of 200 investment banking firms in the states are known to sponsor work visas for international students,” Pham said. “And as prestige is highly valued in the industry, investment banks hire almost exclusively from certain ‘target’ schools, namely the Ivies and other top institutions.”
MSUM Couple Continues Education at Stanford University
It took traveling nearly 7,700 miles from Ethiopia to Minnesota for Iwnetim (Tim) Abate ’15 (physics) and Loza Tadesse ’16 (chemistry) to meet.
Abate and Tadesse met in 2013 at MSUM, both international students from Ethiopia. The pair connected through their mutual culture and love for research and scientific discoveries, and married in August 2015.
The couple is continuing their journey together at Stanford University. Both were accepted into graduate programs for the fall of 2016—Abate into the Material Science and Engineering Ph.D. program, and Tadesse into the Bioengineering Ph.D. program.
With an acceptance rate of only around 10 percent for Stanford’s graduate programs, the couple is thankful they are able to continue their adventure together. They have proven time and time again that hard work and a solid foundation are key to success.
Read Abate and Tadesse's full story
Film Production Student Earns National Honor
Naoya Uchida ’15 (film production) won first place and a $3,000 scholarship in the annual Freedom of Speech PSA Contest during his senior year at Minnesota State University Moorhead.
Nearly 200 students across the country competed in the national competition for college communication students, which called for a 30-second radio and television spots answering the question, “What does freedom of speech mean to you?”
Uchida, an international student from Kanagawa, Japan, developed a passion for photography and documenting cultures during his travels in North America, Central America, South America, Europe, Korea and China.