august - jan internship possibility?

I am incoming freshman and my school just told us that freshmen will be on campus jan-august 2021. Getting a freshman summer internship was already hard enough and now it is impossible because well, no summer. I was wondering if anyone had any advice / suggestions on my possibilities of getting a remote internship from august- january? I know this is basically impossible but I really want some exposure to the industry and try to make the most out of this time. I just want to know if firms would be willing to hire me, I am fine with being unpaid but I just feel no one will give me the opportunity.

I am in LA and was considering reaching out to small banks in the area but if it is a remote one, does it really matter where the banks actually are? I want to start in August because I know right now firms are focused on the current college interns they have, so I wanted to join after they are gone.

Also idk if it's relevant but I go to a target

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If I were in your shoes I would start teaching technicals; if you are fortunate enough to get an interview you will be asked something since you are not even a freshman yet At the same time start reaching out to every, literally every, firm that is somehow related to finance. You can start reaching out to alumni if you find them in the career section of the website or just email someone at every firm. If you email 20 emails each day you will have sent out 600 emails in a month and someone will reply to you. Know that a 2% response rate will be good.

When you write emails try to express your willingness to learn, to work heavy hours since you are doing nothing, and try to leverage the fact that they won't find many other interns that will be able to work full time in the fall.

Since we're handling COVID really bad, it is likely that we will keep working remotely for the fall and therefore I wouldn't worry about a geographic constraint.

 

I go to Brown I would say there is basically 0 chance of getting an internship before school starts- getting an internship freshman summer is hard enough, doing it without any college experience will be nearly impossible. definitely don't worry about it though- I worked at an ice cream shop my freshman summer and got an IB job, so its not like a freshman finance gig is a requirement to get a job in finance later.

I would say focus on taking classes at brown (pretty sure they're letting you take at least one class?) so just get something out of the way. start learning technicals (basic accounting, excel, etc). maybe do a financial modeling course if you're really bored. mostly just relax and get ready for school in the spring.

 

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