Sophomore Summer: I'm completely lost
Please excuse my naivety, but I'm really having some trouble as to where to begin when it comes to looking for something for the summer. I ultimately want to go into IBD, but I feel like it's impossible to find something my sophomore summer. I have a 3.9 GPA, am slightly involved on campus, and last year I was the program director for a summer camp, which was actually an unbelievable leadership experience. However, since it's nowhere related to finance, it's obviously not relevant to anything this summer. So, my question is, what types of internships should I look for? I really have no connections, I don't know anything about networking, and I go to a target school that really doesn't provide much help with recruiting for your sophomore summer. Should I look for internships in PWM, or should I look at commercial banks, or maybe local venture capital funds? As an ultimate fallback, I know I can land an internship at Quicken Loans, which probably doesn't look that great, but it's better than nothing. On that note, is it really detrimental if I don't get a good internship this summer, when it's next summer that counts the most? Once again, I know I'm extremely naive, but I'm looking for something to steer me in the right direction, because, as you can tell, I'm just so lost. I appreciate any advice I can get!
If you want to get somewhere reputable for junior year, do PWM at a top BB, minimum. Call up places and try to get an MM/Boutique IB internship. The internship you have sophomore year is the most important thing for summer analyst recruiting junior year, GPA/EC's matter much less. You have a decent GPA so even though you don't have anything finance related so far, you still have a shot at a boutique IB firm.
"On that note, is it really detrimental if I don't get a good internship this summer, when it's next summer that counts the most?" - Yes, it is very detrimental. You'll have a very tough time getting interviews at good firms. By "good", all you need to get is a name brand firm or a boutique/MM IB firm.
I go to a decent target and still felt the same- until I visited my career services office. If you go to UMich (judging by your icon), you should have good resources and recruitment at your disposal. Moreover, you have a loyal network at your disposal that you should be able to access. Again, it all starts with getting the right logins or whatever from career services.
Thanks, I really appreciate the advice! And yes, it is Ross, which obviously has a great network. Still, for sophomore summer, on-campus recruiting doesn't help nearly as much as it does for junior summer. However, if worse comes to worst and I end up interning at a mortgage lender (my ultimate fallback), is that at least a little good for when it comes to looking for stuff my junior summer?
its December and you go to a target school. Theres still plenty of time I wouldn't be worrying about Quicken loans just yet- start cold calling and emailing boutiques and you should have something locked up in the next couple months. After you have a boutique IB internship soph. year and a 3.9 GPA @ Ross, Junior year SA recruiting will be very, very easy.
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