Could this internship actually be bad for me?

Long story short: I'm a junior at a relatively unknown school in the south (really wishing I had just bit the bullet on the $150,000 for Duke right about now) with a 3.7 cumulative GPA and a 4.0 major GPA in economics. I've been networking towards a summer analyst gig for a few months – mainly at regional and middle market firms – but haven't made much progress.

Anyway, in an unlikely series of events, I befriended a man in a bar while traveling through Europe last summer who turned out to be an MD of the investment banking department of Edward Jones. We hit it off pretty well and he suggested that I may be able to intern with them in their (primarily public finance-related) office in St. Louis. I still have his contact information and I'll probably reach out to him in the next few weeks.

I'm aware that beggars can't be choosers and that most people are beggars in this market, but will this internship be beneficial to me in attempting to move further in the investment banking world? My main concern is being pigeonholed by their focus on public finance (only 4 people in the entire office deal with corporate finance) or possibly penalized by the stigma sometimes associated with the Jones name.

Thanks for any advice.

Also, I'm new here. So hey.

5 Comments
 

I would try for a BB internship through networking.Banks do a large % of their hiring through SA programs. That being said, your "worse case scenario" is hardly a bad situation to find yourself. I would just learn as much as you can and network like crazy. For every one person who has a good internship, there are 50-100 applicants that have no applicable experience so you will have a leg up either way.

 

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