Meet Viktoriya Ulman, a double major in Finance Honors and Accountancy Honors. Viktoriya grew up in Ukraine and moved to Aurora, Illinois during her sophomore year of high school. When it was time to apply for colleges, she found DePaul to be a perfect fit because of the combination of campus and city life. Currently a junior at DePaul, Viktoriya is involved in many finance school organizations such as Females in Finance, DePaul Investment Group, DePaul Tea Talks, as well as DePaul Inclusion in Finance, where she serves as the Chief Operation Officer on the DIF executive board. In addition to being heavily involved in many DePaul school organizations, she is also a member of the Keeley Center Academy, a two-year co-curricular program for high potential finance majors pursuing careers in commercial, corporate and investment banking, capital markets, wealth management, investment management and financial consulting.
During the summer of Viktoriya’s sophomore year at DePaul, she had the opportunity to work at Fifth Third Bank as a commercial middle-market intern in the healthcare sector. Viktoriya shared with us that she chose to intern at Fifth Third Bank because the bank left an impression on her during her sophomore year and she was impressed that Fifth Third recruits talent early, offering many sophomores/rising juniors opportunities to engage and learn more about the field. Viktoriya was also impressed with the strong ties the bank has with the Keeley Center and feels she benefited from the industry partner relationship. Additionally, Viktoriya shared that her favorite aspect of being an intern at Fifth Third Bank was being on the sales team which allowed her to learn about the importance of building client relationships.
A piece of advice that Viktoriya would offer other students who are interested in an internship role at Fifth Third Bank, or any internship for that matter, is to have curiosity and network. She emphasized that during her internship, she introduced herself and met many professionals from other departments throughout her time at the bank. Furthermore, she points out that during an internship is where you learn and grow, so don’t be afraid to ask questions. She also added, “finding other students who have the same goals as you can be very beneficial, especially when you need that extra push and also to be supportive along the way”.