Should I even bother?

Im a incoming sophomore going into my second year at Vanderbilt and didn't get any offers for a freshman year internship besides a sales intern at Aflac. Im looking for anything to fill out my resume given its freshman summer, but im scared of the negative implications i might face by putting an internshp like this on my resume. Will this hurt my resume if I put this on? Should I even do this or is it a complete waste of time? 

p.s i want to go into IB and couldn't care less about being paid right now, just need something for my resume.

14 Comments
 

You go to Vanderbilt, relax. Spend this summer learning as much as you can about finance, maybe you don’t even like IB who knows.
Main thing , when u come back to campus start immediately studying for technicals and networking. By November you should be ready and that’s when ib season will start. If you network well, you should get interviews if your gpa is good and you go to vandy. Don’t fuck up the interviews and study then you are fine. Relax

 

This is what i was going to do. Study and complete the CFA exam during the summer, maybe a bit of networking, but my sister who has been in prestigous hf roles says I have to do something and it looks bad to do nothing the whole summer. conversely, ive also seen posts saying that doing these kinds of internshps and putting them on your resume significantly hurts you. Any thoughts? Im a white male with a 4.0 Applied math major.

 

Yea it’s not good to not have anything done over the summer, but it’s already June you aren’t gonna get an offer for this summer. Idk if you’ll get CFA done over summer, takes a long time to get done and not as worth as you think it is. If you want to study for anything, study LBO/DCF/financial modeling. Study all the ib technicals. You could go get your securities license in a summer easily.

You also mentioned doing those kinds of internships looks bad, what kind of internships? If it’s something like northwestern mutual yea do not do it unless you got corporate in Wisconsin. But from my pov any experience is good experience

 

Vel placeat eum non itaque unde. Perspiciatis blanditiis qui ut eligendi quas exercitationem autem. Nemo sunt neque facilis quis aspernatur ut velit. Omnis fugit possimus consequatur eligendi. Quia illum qui deserunt eveniet unde inventore laudantium. Est magni atque veritatis perferendis.

Career Advancement Opportunities

June 2026 Investment Banking

  • Evercore 01 99.4%
  • Moelis & Company 01 98.8%
  • JPMorgan 01 98.2%
  • Guggenheim Partners 01 97.7%
  • Morgan Stanley 07 97.1%

Overall Employee Satisfaction

June 2026 Investment Banking

  • Moelis & Company No 99.4%
  • Morgan Stanley 01 98.8%
  • Evercore 01 98.2%
  • BMO Capital Markets 12 97.6%
  • Banco Santander 01 97.1%

Professional Growth Opportunities

June 2026 Investment Banking

  • Moelis & Company No 99.4%
  • Evercore No 98.8%
  • Morgan Stanley 05 98.2%
  • JPMorgan No 97.7%
  • BMO Capital Markets 12 97.1%

Total Avg Compensation

June 2026 Investment Banking

  • Vice President (14) $434
  • Associates (43) $259
  • 3rd+ Year Analyst (8) $210
  • 2nd Year Analyst (22) $179
  • Intern/Summer Associate (13) $156
  • 1st Year Analyst (75) $151
  • Intern/Summer Analyst (65) $101
notes
16 IB Interviews Notes

“... there’s no excuse to not take advantage of the resources out there available to you. Best value for your $ are the...”

Leaderboard

1
redever's picture
redever
99.2
2
Secyh62's picture
Secyh62
99.0
3
BankonBanking's picture
BankonBanking
99.0
4
kanon's picture
kanon
99.0
5
dosk17's picture
dosk17
98.9
6
GameTheory's picture
GameTheory
98.9
7
DrApeman's picture
DrApeman
98.9
8
Betsy Massar's picture
Betsy Massar
98.9
9
CompBanker's picture
CompBanker
98.9
10
Jamoldo's picture
Jamoldo
98.8
success
From 10 rejections to 1 dream investment banking internship

“... I believe it was the single biggest reason why I ended up with an offer...”