Name: Natasha Celia

Nationality: Indonesian

High School: SMA Katolik St. Louis 1, Surabaya, Indonesia

Year of Entry: 2019

Major and School: Finance, School of Management and Economics

College: Harmonia

Congratulations to Natasha on finding her first job!

Natasha Celia, who is about to graduate from CUHK-Shenzhen this year, was admitted to SME with a Full Tuition scholarship in 2019. She wanted to study finance and saw Mandarin Chinese as an important language skill to make her more competitive in her future career. Natasha is also a great musician, as she started learning piano at four and cello at eight. Her passion for music brought her to join the University Orchestra in Year 1, where she made many friends with similar interests. 

“I did not know what career path I wanted to follow in the first year, but Macroeconomics inspired me to find my career path,” Natasha said. She decided to major in Finance at the end of the first year but kept a profound interest in economics.

Natasha believes it is very important to take the best advantage of the tutorials and “not be afraid to ask dumb questions”. She felt particularly grateful to her Teaching Assistant who encouraged her to voice her confusion and often responded to her math questions outside the office hours.

In the third academic year, Natasha took Professor Jian Wang’s class “Financial Markets in China and the World”. Professor Wang is the Area Head of Economics at the School of Management and Economics (SME) and the Associate Director of Shenzhen Finance Institute (SFI). Natasha respected the professor and found him a great help in her path to understanding the roles of an economist, a generalist, and a specialist in the financial industry. The course itself also helped Natasha choose among the possible career paths. “Later I decided to develop my career in investment banking,” Natasha recalled. “Not only Prof. Wang, but all of my professors have gone through rigorous studies and had plenty of work experiences in the industries,” Natasha said she wanted to be lifelong learners like her professors.

Natasha is expected to graduate this July, but as early as August 2022, she has already secured a position with JP Morgan’s Jakarta Office. In the two years after graduation, Natasha will be allocated in JP Morgan’s front, middle and back offices in Jakarta respectively and work as a management trainee.

During the pandemic, Natasha had to study online at home, but she grasped the opportunity and did a two-month internship in JP Morgan’s Jakarta Office. She stood out from hundreds of competitors from Indonesia and around the world when trying to procure that internship, which later turned out to be her way into the company: “They took six interns and offered jobs to five of us in the end”, Natasha recalled. 

In the video below, Natasha shared her tips about how she found her first job.