Soccer Opened a World of Doors for Elsa Wu

(PITTSBURGH, Pa.) – For Elsa Wu, one of the most decorated women's soccer players in Carnegie Mellon University history, soccer provided everything she felt she needed in college. It was a friend outside of soccer, however, that helped land her a future away from Carnegie Mellon and soccer.

Wu has done many things off the soccer field during her four years at Carnegie Mellon, including joining the professional business fraternity, Alpha Kappa Psi, the Undergraduate Finance Association and the Student-Athlete Advisory Council. She's held different roles with each but her association with Alpha Kappa Psi influenced her next move.

Come May, Wu will graduate from Carnegie Mellon with a degree in business and the ability to speak several languages. Her next move will be to New York City where she'll work for Nomura, a global investment bank.

Wu first heard of Nomura through an Alpha Kappa Psi alum and when the company was recruiting on campus, she took the opportunity to find out more.

At Nomura, Wu will be a global markets analyst either in sales, trading or research. She's leaning towards trading but will see what happens after the training program, which happens to be four weeks long in London, England.

"I'm so excited for the training program," commented Wu. "I've never been to London."

Wu has traveled outside the United States though, using a summer to study in Taiwan, the home country of her parents.

"I wanted to study abroad in general," said Wu. "I chose Taiwan because it offered the perfect program."

As Wu grew up, she went to a Chinese school until soccer came into play around the second grade. After switching schools, Wu felt she lost all the reading and writing ability she had learned to that point. Hearing other Asian students on campus communicate in different languages made her regret that she lost the opportunity to be fluent and literate in the language her parents could also speak.

"While in Taiwan, I took one language course and one culture course," said Wu. "This reestablished my language skills and we got to go on excursions to a tea-making ceremony and to the main museums with artifacts."

Wu has spent her final semester preparing for her career and future goals by taking a business class called Managing Across Cultures and four language courses - Italian, Japanese, Chinese and Korean.

Although she'll be working for Nomura in New York City, it is a Japanese company. What she's found interesting about her final business course is how cultures influence business and how you need to know how to deal with people depending on what country you go to.

"The class is strengthening everything I'm going to do," said Wu.

As for her interest in so many languages, Wu hopes to live outside the United States some day.

Soccer played a role in getting Wu to Carnegie Mellon. It provided competition, friendship and structure. And in some ways, the game led to her desire to study abroad, the reason she chose Taiwan and the reason she'll leave Carnegie Mellon with a wide breadth of knowledge.