Isabella Martillo

One of my coaches gave me advice that changed the trajectory of my collegiate career and how I approached life: to control what I can control, and to do so with heart. It was about knowing your why, because sometimes we lose sight of that love and the why behind what we're doing because we value statistics or our successes. We lose sight of that love, and sometimes life takes us different courses, but as long as we can go back to our whys and recognize that success isn't necessarily measured on a stat sheet, we can stay grounded. How I measure success is: Am I able to walk out of a room better than the way that I walked into the room? I approach every opportunity as a learning experience, and as long as I'm learning, doing what I know that I can do and what I can control, and doing it with pure intentions, then I find that a win. I categorize that as a win in my life.

Don't get hung up and don't compare yourself to others, because everyone's at a different stage in their life. For a little bit, I was comparing myself to other candidates who knew since sophomore year what they wanted to do, meanwhile here I am just having a career shift and now really pursuing a career in finance. Go at your own pace, and it's okay. Even if you think you are behind, you're not. It's more about how you go about the present right now. I'm a little behind in maybe a certain finance position, but what is the best position I can pursue right now, given the track that I'm currently on, and going at it with full force? Think about your own career path, and even if you don't know your own career path, you're going to find out, you're going to find your calling. I didn't realize what I wanted to do coming into college. I didn't really know what I wanted to do until really my senior year. You never understand something until you go through it yourself. When I was a freshman and sophomore, the graduating players told me that my obsession with my sport and training would translate into my working profession once it's over, and I'm seeing that now because now I'm obsessed with learning more and putting myself in the right position to succeed.

Health has been a hot topic in my athletic career, and I'm currently going through a hip hiccup. Another challenge I recently went through was comparing myself to other possible candidates in this job market. I don't have the fancy internships. I don't have investment banking at Bank of America. Fall sport athletes have to come into school early, starting mid-July to early August, and most summer internships go into early August, so it was hard for me to navigate and pick out an internship that was willing to work with my commitment to school and soccer. In the beginning of the semester, when I really sat down and made the deliberate, intentional decision to pursue finance, I felt discouraged because I looked at my resume and thought, yeah, I have great experience, but is it finance great? I took that as an opportunity - how can I continue to build and get more finance opportunities under my belt? That's where I utilized my connections through Binghamton to land a financial operations shadow role with the Department of Athletics to show that I am interested and actively pursuing these roles. I'm also looking into certifications including SIE, Bloomberg Terminal, online analyst programs, and potentially the Series 7 to make up for that time. I've realized that I have a great story. I have the student-athlete experience, and there's only a percentage of people that get to have that privilege in playing a sport and pursuing academics at the same time, let alone a master's degree. I chose to give myself more credit for that and to not be discouraged. I'm very confident in my soft skills, I'm developing my hard skills, and I know that everything's going to be okay.