Aleksandra Mikhaylova

“I loved being able to take honors classes, get a free education, and be part of an amazing community of Macaulay students.”

Aleksandra Mikhaylova has been a go-getter since she arrived with her family in the U.S. at age 7 from St. Petersburg, Russia. While attending Brooklyn Tech H.S., Aleksandra worked various jobs, including data entry, retail, event planning, and fashion modeling.

At Macaulay, she has maintained a 3.86 GPA while earning a major and three minors, taking a graduate-level math course, working 15-30 hours a week at various internships and holding leadership positions in two Baruch student organizations, including Hillel. While Aleksandra’s major is Statistics and Quantitative Modeling, her minors include Interdisciplinary Studies of NYC, Math, and Hebrew, which was inspired by using the Opportunities Fund to study abroad.

“I worked in Tel Aviv at a venture capital firm as an incentive incubator. It was really an incredible opportunity to experience a different culture and to live independently on my own. That experience inspired me to become a Hebrew minor.”

In addition, Aleksandra has traveled to Germany, funded through the Marshall Plan to learn about post-WWII Germany and how the country is working to educate its citizens about its past and maintain a good relationship with Israel. She also traveled to Cuba–her “most amazing Macaulay experience”–exploring that country’s wildlife and culture along with other Macaulay students.

The Midwood resident also found time to take part in competitions, as she did recently with a team member from Baruch’s Traders Club that made an impressive showing in a national contest.

“We competed at Traders@MIT, an intercollegiate trading competition where we won second place across 5 rounds of manual and algorithmic trading competitions. We outranked teams from Dartmouth, Harvard, Princeton, and Columbia.”

Aleksandra also impressed colleagues at Goldman Sachs where she had two summer internships. Even before graduating, she knew that she had a full-time job at Goldman as a Single Stock Volatility Trader.

“I am really excited about this role because it combines all of the things that I love. I find markets fascinating, and I enjoy options trading because it is very quantitative and fitting to my math and statistics background, and I get to do single stock analysis.”

It was a no-brainer for Aleksandra to choose Macaulay Honors College, giving her an opportunity to graduate debt-free. Most importantly, she says, “I loved being able to take honors classes, get a free education, and be part of an amazing community of Macaulay students.”

Photo of Aleksandra Mikhaylova