By: Justin Lafleur, Lehigh Sports Communications
 
While searching for potential summer internships, Lehigh women's soccer rising seniors Maggie Wadsworth and Kathryn Jacobellis were instantly drawn to Bloomberg, a privately-held financial, software, data and media company.
 
"One of the reasons I specifically chose Bloomberg was because they really stress being transparent, collaborative and innovative," said Wadsworth. "Those are their three core principals, which is something I really respect and it's an environment I wanted to be a part of."
 
Wadsworth and Jacobellis are currently immersed in that environment, living in New York City and experiencing the business world in the "city that never sleeps."
 
"Kat and I are living in New York University dorms. We're rooming together, with four other roommates," said Wadsworth. "We have both come from so far, Kat being from Arizona and myself from North Carolina. We were brought together at Lehigh and again in New York City. We've ended up at the same places over a couple years through college, which is a bond we share."
 
The latest chapter in that bond comes with Bloomberg, an opportunity they both explored on their own before realizing the other was looking at Bloomberg as well. Speaking with Lehigh women's soccer alumnus, and former teammate Grace Correll '17 who currently works full time at Bloomberg, the feeling of camaraderie within the company came to the surface.
 
"It's such a welcoming environment," said Jacobellis. "The building is situated in a way where the elevator takes you to a floor called the pantry, meant for networking. There are tables everywhere. It fosters going up to people you may not know, introducing yourself and talking to them." 

 

An environment like this is one Wadsworth and Jacobellis are very used to with Lehigh women's soccer. The team is close, on and off the field.
 
"Being so used to that environment, I believe that's how Maggie and I were able to adjust so quickly this summer," said Jacobellis.
 
How did they adjust? First, by leaning the business, beginning with the Bloomberg Terminal – a computer system in which users can monitor and analyze real-time market data.
 
It's not an easy adjustment because as Jacobellis said, "There are over 30,000 functions on the terminal."
 
The interns are currently in the midst of a 10-week sales and analytics program running from early June through early August. As part of the analytics portion (the first half of the summer), the interns were split into two teams.
 
"We were given an institution, then had to choose a player type in that institution," said Wadsworth. "My group's institution was hedge funds and we chose analysts. We basically had to find a way for our player type (analysts) to increase their usage of the Bloomberg Terminal. We had to brainstorm different ideas and ways of doing this, then form a proactive campaign."
 
Creating the campaign wasn't easy, and featured a wide variety of experiences. No two days were the same.
 
"Something pretty consistent throughout was making product deployment calls," said Wadsworth. "We called existing users of the terminal and clients, informing them about new functions or tools that have been rolled out. The calls were to increase usage of the terminal and keep them up-to-date on advancements, ensuring they're continuing to use the terminal in new ways."
 
Meanwhile, Jacobellis was in a different group as Maggie, but doing similar work. Kat's group was in charge of the institution broker-dealers, with the player type commodity trader.
 
"We used the terminal as a resource to look up functions that we thought would be applicable for commodity traders and pitch it to them to make the function a resource for all commodity traders," said Jacobellis. "We worked in teams and networked with a bunch of employees in Bloomberg, who we usually didn't work with. We teamed up with a bunch of commodity specialists and equity specialists, getting viewpoints from all the asset classes."
 
Speaking of multiple viewpoints, Wadsworth and Jacobellis are getting just that through their Bloomberg experience. After finishing the analytics portion of their internship, they are currently working in the sales part of the summer.
 
"Sales is a lot of direct client interaction rather than the back-office aspect of analytics," said Jacobellis. "We go on a lot of client visits and see the trading floors of places like JP Morgan.
 
"We were also assigned a project which we need to finish on our own," she continued. "With this setup, we have to implement more time management skills than before and they (Bloomberg) have been training us how to utilize our time."
 
Luckily for Wadsworth and Jacobellis, they are already well-trained in time management.
 
"As student-athletes, we're constantly having to prioritize our time in order to manage our academic lives, athletic lives and social lives," said Wadsworth.
 
Internships like Wadsworth and Jacobellis are experiencing this summer are valuable because they resonate in all aspects of life.
 
"I have learned how to network and come out of my shell a bit," said Jacobellis. "Go up to someone that you don't know, introduce yourself and learn from each other. I'm not typically the type person to do that, but I have definitely learned skills that will help me in that area."
 
A finance major who has aspirations in the field, Jacobellis has also learned specific skills related to her past, present and future.
 
"For an individual project, we had to look at a class from our college, so I took a finance class from Lehigh," said Jacobellis. "Then, we had to search the terminal and find a function that would be most beneficial for that class. I was able to reflect on and learn about the benefits of that class, bringing together what I'm learning at Lehigh and what I'm learning at Bloomberg."
 
A finance major as well, Wadsworth also has strong aspirations to continue in the field of finance. This summer was quite the start.
 
"A lot of big banks and other financial institutions rely on the Bloomberg Terminal in order to provide information," said Wadsworth. "I feel like being an expert with the terminal will be very helpful because I can figure out a lot of functions and see how they can help towards specific clients. 

 

"For example, if someone wanted to know a fixed income price, I would tell them exactly where to find it and what function to use to analyze it. It's almost like having an insider source, which will be really valuable if I ever want to go into other financial industry companies."
 
This summer has only reinforced to Wadsworth that she hopes to continue learning and growing in the area of finance.
 
"I am a very analytically-minded person, but I am also very creative and have a very conceptual mind and background as well," she said. "Being able to utilize both of those together (analytics and creativity) feels like the perfect position for me. Moving forward, I really want to be within the financial services industry at a place that really values me and the work I'm doing. I'd like to be at a place where I'm producing positive results and within a company environment that is very inclusive."
 
An inclusive atmosphere is exactly what Wadsworth and Jacobellis found at Bloomberg, and with Lehigh women's soccer.
 
In many ways, their worlds have collided this summer.
 
Along with Correll who works full-time at Bloomberg, several other Lehigh women's soccer graduates work in New York City. And in addition to Jacobellis, classmates Kayla Arestivo (The Tonight Show) and Annika Jansa (Macquarie) are also currently interning in NYC.
 
Cohesive is one of the values of Lehigh women's soccer; being together outside of soccer is only making that cohesion stronger.
 
"Our team is very close, so it's awesome to have so many people close by," said Wadsworth. "When you're building relationships outside of an athletic and high-pressure environment, and you can relax and really get to know people, that's very important. Going away from the stressful, high-pressure environment, being able to sit down with your teammates and not have to focus on athletics 24-7 is something that's really helpful [in building cohesion]. I'm glad that we're all able to be here."
 
"Here" for Wadsworth and Jacobellis is Bloomberg, in which one of its values is collaborative. Sound familiar? Like women's soccer's value cohesive, it also means that success happens together.
 
Together means everyone, no matter the circumstances. Unfortunately, Jacobellis has suffered multiple serious injuries in her soccer careers, but her welcoming teammates have made sure she knows she's an integral part of the Lehigh women's soccer program no matter what.
 
"My teammates have consistently made me feel like I still have a role on the team," said Jacobellis. "That's very important in a company, too. Even if you don't face physical hardships like you would on a soccer field, you may have some setbacks in the working environment. One day, something may not go well, like the stock market could be down or everything could just be going the wrong way.
 
"But having these people around you can help build your confidence and let you know you're here for a reason."

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