MA Econ, Strong Interest in Financial Markets, Some Sales Experience - Tailor to trading internship

Hello Dear Simians,

I'm currently enrolled in a MA in Economics program at City College, and did my undergrad BBA in Entrepreneurship at Baruch College. I have concluded long ago that entrepreneurship and select careers in finance are the shortest paths to financial independence, which is my ultimate goal. I enjoyed my undergraduate work in entrepreneurship but did not want to chase investors with a lack of my own capital to contribute and therefore settled on a job doing business development for a tech company. Got into a disagreement with them over commissions (told me OTE was 75k, then handed me a first quarter bonus of $75) and realizing that bus. dev was not rocket science, set out as a freelancer then scaled into a small sales outsourcing business.

The money in bus dev is decent but I find the work intellectually boring and want to branch out. I enjoyed my undergrad work in Economics, and have been increasingly interested in the markets so I decided to go for a masters program given that the opportunity costs right now have never been lower (reduced tuition, low fed loan rates, high unemployment rate) and I wanted to demonstrate that I have the intellectual chops for more advanced analytical and quantitative work. I'm not exactly sure where I want to end up yet, but really like the idea of working at a trading desk and would be engaged by the real time strategy.

I'd like to leverage my sales experience to whatever degree I can to get my foot in the door for a trading internship, but I'm still early in my masters program so not sure if I have all the knowledge required to secure one. In addition to the masters program I am reading Graham's works as well as some other selected books of interest regarding behavioral finance and risk. I am also taking online courses in game theory and Python for financial analysis and algorithmic trading.

I can search around for the best ways to prepare for interviews and resources etc, but what I'd like some advice on is how to specifically tailor my experience to an internship that would give me exposure to a trading desk and firms to target that are not as focused on Ivy degrees and would take a shot on someone sharp, creative and intellectually curious.