Freshmen: What to do during your freshman year summer

It is no secret that Wall Street Oasis attracts a great deal of rising college students. Hence, I decided to make a post on the type of internships and work-experience students can go about attaining for their freshman year summer.

Before that, however, something needs to be said: it is not mandatory to have a “finance” internship after your freshman year. In fact, taking a vacation to Europe, volunteering your time to a cause you care about, interning for a candidate’s political campaign can be extremely beneficial. These experiences can allow you to have interesting material to talk about during your interviews.

However, if you really want to get your feet in the industry, here are some things you can do:

Private Wealth Management

Private Wealth Management: PWM is the branch of a bank that manages the wealth of affluent clients and offers an array of financial products/services to them.

Note: PWM internships are usually regarded as bs. However, having the name of a bank on your resume can only help BB. In many cases, PWM internships can lead to IB based internships next year.

Here is how to go about securing PWM internships:

1. Find any classmates or alumni who work/have worked in PWM and reach out to them.
2. Find advisers in your desired region, offices, and banks who are in PWM. You can do this by typing in “(Name of Bank) Private Wealth Management” in Google and exploring the websites that show up.
3. Reach out to these advisers and try to secure an internship for the summer.

In finance, networking is one of the most efficient ways to get a job. Hence, be persistent with emailing advisers, reaching out firms and so on.

corporate finance

corporate finance: While different from IB Finance, these internships can provide you with helpful knowledge and work experience.

For these positions, usually, you will be able to land some sort of gig at local firms and Fortune 400 to 500 companies.

Securing an internship in corporate finance is not as straightforward. The best way to go about doing this is to ask your parents if they know any friends, colleagues, and etc. who will be able to land you some sort of position. Contacting your school’s alumni in this field and attending on-campus info sessions for corporations can only help.

You could also reach out to startups and small companies in your hometown and other places. Usually, if you are a smart kid, hardworking and the company needs the help, they will not mind you working for them.

Investment Banking

Investment Banking Internship: Now this is bit of a long shot, but it has been done before.

The best way to acquire an IB internship as a freshman is to contact local, middle market and boutique investment banking firms. And by boutiques I don’t mean Lazard, Evercore, or Moelis.

The way to go about doing this is to contact the people at these firms i.e. Analysts, Associates, MDs, VPs and etc. Tell them a bit about yourself, where you are studying, your interest in working for them, and etc. If you need some sort of structure, search WSO for cold-email templates as there are a ton of them.

If you contact enough people, you are bound to receive a response from someone. Moreover, working in BO (Back Office) or MO (Middle Office) roles cannot hurt at this stage.

Conclusion

Again, there a million of other things you could do over the summer. You could work in retail, go on a spiritual retreat or lend a hand to your family’s business. However, if you want to land a full time Front Office gig at a BB or elite boutique, your time may be somewhat better spent in the highlighted roles.

Also, if you type in something like “Freshman Internship Investment Banking” on Google, a great deal of forms on the topic will show up.

Thanks for reading! It would also be great for other monkeys and professionals to share their experiences on this topic.