i feel so behind

Poster above said it all. You’re young and this is FAR from over for you. You still have control over how this turns out, so spend all your time making sure it turns out in your favor. You’re gonna make it.

Please don’t waste even a single second feeling dejected or bad for yourself. It’s never worth it. Wish I had learned that a lot sooner.

It’s all been said really well above, all depends how bad you want it. If you’re willing to grind a bit, I’d recommend doing a part time search fund internship during your upcoming school year. It will give you some very related work experience and would allow you to have some deal oriented stuff to talk about on your resume when recruiting during the latter part of your 2nd year. 

I’d recommend start reaching out to search funds now, would be best to focus on ones being run by former bankers so you could be mentored in that regard, and propose working 10-20 hours a week 

I didn’t have an internship after freshman year. I worked at a Whole Foods.

This past summer (post-sophomore year) I worked as an S&T intern. Next summer I have an internship lined up at an investment bank in an M&A role. So don’t worry, people without a freshman internship have done it before, you still have time. Follow the above advice on your actions and you’ll get there

I was in the same spot as you but I never focused on landing one of those internships I spent my time building very strong connections through strategic networking and lined something up for junior year summer with no prior finance internships. Banks know how hard it is to get a sophomore seat. Don’t panic, network.

.

Your top priorities right now are three related tasks, all at once:

- Secure an internship in anything relevant, ideally a boutique bank

- Network enough to get interviews during the next recruiting season (which while it starts in five months, it still goes through the summer)

- Study for interviews

There's no secret or easy way, but if you want this job you absolutely can catch up before recruiting kicks off. You're not even that far behind. Dedicate time every day to an hour or more of each task. This will require some delayed gratification on your part. Thursday afternoon and you don't have class? Crack open rosenbaum and pearl, take some notes on one topic. Friday morning before section? Queue up some networking emails to fire off on Monday. Going to your finance club? Chat with upperclassmen about which sophomore internships they did and how they secured. 

You're going to have to incorporate recruiting into your life for the next 6-9 months but it will be worth it when you can enjoy Junior and Senior year and graduate into a sick job. Best of luck and make sure your efforts align with your interests.

Sometimes going extremely rogue over the summer can work. Instead of a banking internship between soph and junior year, I had an internship in Eastern Europe with an international firm that got a lot of attention during later interviews. If you’re really uncompetitive, and aren’t seeing results with dedicated networking, it might not be a bad fallback to just do something strange, but with a reputable firm.

You're overthinking it cuz its pretty simple. Best case scenario you stop wasting time writing posts like these and get a Fall IB internship at a regional boutique. if fall doesn't work out I personally would rather have an IB internship my soph summer than during spring cuz hopefully in spring you will be busy neworking/recruiting/interviewing which can be hectic if you're also working/doing school.

keep grinding this part is the fun part tbh 

Honest post here…..It’s not as insanely hard as you think to get into banking. There are guys at the Ivys who saw wolf of Wall Street when they were in middle school and decided they wanted to do this with their life in that moment. Countless other though learn about this later along the way. I went to a super non target with almost no alumni presence in IB period. I went from not having heard of IB in June after my sophomore year to an internship offer at a BB in July after my sophomore year. I also just graduated with a guy who literally got hired a month after he graduated college to a BB role that was supposed to go to a lateral hire. His only internship or work experience was one summer in an audit role.

In simple terms, network your butt off, study the interview guides, get the good grades, and go get the jobs. Apply everywhere and see what happens. It’s challenging but not insane. The only reason people think it is is because the Ivy kids want you to think their 200k education was significant but in reality I’m a kid from a state school who paid 10k total and I’m sitting in the chair right next to them. Go get yours

It's very common to feel like you're lagging behind your peers, and honestly I think it's a sign of success. It's good (within reason) to strive for more. 

That being said, you're a sophomore and the expectations aren't necessarily that high. If you are gunning for IB, you have plenty of options, such as networking into a part time internship during the school year to leverage that into a SA gig. 

I went to a non-target, got a 3.1 GPA and had a shitty accounting internship in Junior year only. I was gunning for IB (naively) and ended up graduating without a job. Cut to a year and a half later, I'm moving into a dream CRE role getting paid way more per hour than my peers in IB (due to working half the hours). You really never know where life will lead you, so long as you keep working hard and networking, and prepare yourself for any opportunity that may come. You're in college, your time there is too short to be worried about prestige and obsessing over what your friends are doing. Work hard and have fun. You'll get to where you want to go eventually.