Accounting Internship for Finance. What should I do?

Hey everybody. I'm very interested in Finance and currently looking for an internship at a bank/financial institution for the Spring semester. Currently, I am a sophomore at a target school with a 3.8 GPA. I've been applying and calling everywhere I can, but it is a slow going process finding an internship in Finance. I was recently offered an internship at a well-known accounting firm and the internship pays very well. Should I hold out for a finance internship or just take what I have? For my first internship, will an accounting internship help me in any way to break into finance? Will it hurt my chances?

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Best Response

Completely dependent on the kind of work you're doing at the firm. If you are actually dealing with financial statements and learning what the items on each statement are in depth, that is hugely helpful going into the IB recruiting process and you can definitely spin the internship to add to your story. If you can get a PE or HF internship (you're not going to get anything beyond PWM at a BB), consider the fact that you can't add that much value so unless your role will require analysis and real work then your accounting opp might be better.

TL;DR all about the role

 
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I forgot to mention that it is for tax accounting. Is this still a relevant internship that I can somehow spin?

Accept the tax internship. Don't skew the odds against yourself of having no internship because you held out for Valhalla which never materialized. Cross each bridge as you come to it.
 

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