Is this internship worth it?

I am a sophomore and have recently been offered an internship at a M&A merchant banking firm. The interviewer told me that I would be doing mostly identifying and researching firms that seem ready for a merger or acquisition. I'm not sure but I don't think I'll actually be doing any modeling or quantitative work. Also, the biggest concern of mine is that this is an unpaid position and it is located about 1-hour away from my house. So I would be spending upwards of $1,000 on gas money this summer to do this internship...

Is it worth it to still go through with this?

8 Comments
 
Best Response

Yeah, this is my only option as an internship so far. My other option is to take summer classes and get a double major in statistics and I know that the double major doesn't do anything for me come time for i-bank recruitment. I'm probably going to get flamed for this, but I feel like doing all of these internships for the sake of looking good in junior year recruiting is a bit risky. I really would love to do i-banking and have been gunning for it since freshmen year, but I do realize how difficult it is to break in. I don't come from a family that has much money, so I'd feel really bad about myself if I actually spent money to do unpaid internships and end up with no offer in my junior/senior year.

On the other hand, having a statistics major will allow me to do apply to some other jobs that require a quantitative background and I don't have to rely everything on getting an i-bank offer my junior/senior year. I'm just trying to hedge my options here so that I don't end up unemployed when I graduate.

 

Well, I think this is really good experience and will look good on your resume. I think you'll be in a better position in terms of recruiting by doing this instead of taking classes and double majoring in statistics.

 

Thanks for the responses everyone. I made up my mind to do the internship. I was just worried whether this role would help me for junior SA recruiting. I did a PWM internship earlier and, while the brand name is good, that shit does not give me anything substantial to put on my resume. I was just afraid this internship might turn into something like PWM and that is something I'm not willing to commute an hour for.

 

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