Last week, Scholars for Educational Opportunity (SEO), an organization deeply important to me, hosted its annual gala. This event, held every early fall, always prompts me to reflect on the profound impact the Seo Career Internship Program has had on my life and the lives of many close friends. It’s a story that deserves to be shared.
In essence, the SEO Career internship program identifies, prepares, and mentors high-achieving Black, Latinx, and Native American college students for demanding summer internships. These internships are strategically designed to pave the way for highly sought-after front-office positions within the competitive landscape of Wall Street. While this may sound like a straightforward process, the reality is far from simple.
SEO’s methodology is not only exceptionally rigorous but also remarkably effective. In fact, more professionals from Black and Brown communities have successfully launched careers on Wall Street through the SEO Career internship program than via any other comparable initiative. The organization’s alumni network, now encompassing approximately 19,000 accomplished individuals, represents an incredibly impressive collective, united by their shared experience within SEO.
Every aspiring SEO intern begins with a pivotal step – The Interview. Ask any SEO intern alumnus about it, and they will likely tell you the same thing: it was the most challenging interview they’ve ever faced in their career. My own experience was no different. The difficulty stems from SEO’s core belief that students from underrepresented backgrounds often need to work twice as hard to achieve success in elite environments.
Although my interview occurred nearly two decades ago, the details remain vivid in my memory. The room, the interviewers, the sweat on my palms as I grappled with their intensely challenging questions – these are all etched in my mind. Above all, I recall the overwhelming sense of optimism and gratitude when I learned of my selection as one of approximately 300 interns for the 2004 class, with an internship placement on the trading floor at J.P. Morgan that summer.
SEO’s message to me and my cohort was clear and direct: “We have invited you here because we believe in your potential. We recognize your incredible capabilities, but we also understand that there is much to learn to thrive in this environment, which may be unfamiliar to you.”
They were absolutely correct.
The preparation provided by SEO in the weeks and months that followed extended far beyond fundamental finance skills. Our mentors immersed my fellow Scholars and me in every facet of our upcoming internships. This comprehensive training covered everything from professional attire (blue suits and white shirts) and appropriate hairstyles (short and neat) to the expected conduct at the formal cocktail parties we would attend throughout the summer. (The message was clear: we were there to work. No eating allowed… especially the shrimp!).
SEO imparted much more than just the basic skills needed to navigate these fiercely competitive and high-stakes environments; they equipped us with the tools to truly excel within them.
Among the numerous valuable lessons learned that summer, one stands out as particularly significant, a foundational principle instilled by SEO that has profoundly shaped my entire career: Good is not great, and in this arena, you want to be (and perhaps need to be) great. Until that formative period in my young life, no one had articulated this point to me so starkly and directly.
SEO was the catalyst that first compelled me to genuinely contemplate and confront the often-uncomfortable and perplexing gap between being good and achieving greatness. Which am I currently? Which do I aspire to be? How much dedication and effort am I willing to invest to realize my goals? For better or worse, the acute awareness of this gap has remained a prominent fixture in my consciousness ever since. At times, it may provoke feelings of inadequacy, a sense of falling short of “greatness.” Yet, more often, it serves as a valuable North Star, illuminating the path forward and fueling continued growth.
The SEO Career internship program provided precisely what I needed at that critical juncture. The training and the lessons learned served me exceptionally well throughout that summer and continue to resonate profoundly in my career to this day. The only lingering “downside,” if you can even call it that, is that I still occasionally find myself subconsciously wondering, ‘Am I finally allowed to eat the shrimp yet?’
