The good money coming in from illustrating allowed Wu to attend night-school courses in management at the College of Law and Business of National Chung Hsing University (the college is now National Taipei University) and to study abroad in Japan for one year. When she returned, she began working at Taiwan's then-largest advertising company, Dada Film Production. That's where she met Yao.
插畫帶來的豐厚收入，讓吳菊得以進入中興法商學院企管系夜間部就讀，更遠赴日本進修 1 年，回台後進入當時台灣最大的廣告製片公司「達達電視電影製作公司」就職，她和姚開陽也就在這裡相識而相戀。