Should I take more courses or work for an unpaid internship during Junior year?
My story is a bit more unique than others. To keep it short....I was a failure when I first attended college after graduating high school. I eventually got kicked out due to poor grades and decided to start working full time since school wasn't for me. During my job, I have developed an interest for finance while growing as a person. After working for 3 years, I've decided to quit and work on my finance degree full time. As of right now, I've accumulated 50+ credits in a community college in less than a year and I'm about to graduate within a month. GPA is a 4.0 and most of my classes are geared toward business such as Pre cal/ Calculus/ Statistics/ Business/ Marketing etc...
I'm going to be attending a 4 year business program (Baruch, Pace, Fordam, etc...). Obviously my biggest short term goal is obtain an internship for the upcoming ( junior year) summer. By the time I actually visit these recruiters, I don't think I will have more than 20 credits in 4 year college to show for. My concern is, should I load up on more course work? My option is to either take more classes such as 6+ or 4 while doing some sort of non paid internship.
I don't any have work exp towards finance but I've learned and completed the BIW models on my free time. Any help / Suggestions would be great. It was a long text, sorry for the inconvenience.
i think kids screw themselves taking unpaid internships. correct me if im wrong, but ive never heard of anyone that took an unpaid internship, got their foot in the door, and now are successful just because they were able to land that unpaid internship. almost every friend i know whos working unpaid is doing bitch work and has no chance to show themselves as a value to the firm. I understand that it's a networking oportunity, but i find college to be a more valuable networking opportunity if you know how to involve yourself (trade on your own/ for a partnership, etc)
if you can land something paid its a whole different ballgame, but is the value of your time really $0? id actually really like to hear someone chime in from the other side here.
Definitely try to land a paid internship in finance, that's truly how it should be. I don't disagree that it's not really amazing for getting your foot in the door, but it is something. I did an unpaid internship. It's turned out to be valuable experience that I can use in my interviews and boosts my resume a lot. Also, you need to tell the people you'd be working for what you want to do. Obviously you're an intern so you will do some grunt work, but you should be able to make it what you want to make it. In this economy, the networking was not so useful for me. But I know of someone who did an unpaid internship their junior year summer at a smaller bank, and through networking, landed a really good gig at a BB.
But honestly, if it's unpaid, only do it if it's a really good one. Really good. As for your other question, not quite sure how to answer it, but for business I think internships really make the difference for your ultimate full time position. GPA serves more as a cutoff or a qualifier. Also, it's very important to have a junior year summer internship (almost standard, really). But I'm no expert on this, someone else should comment.
After reading a lot here on the forums (I'm only a rising sophomore) I get the impression that someone in your position as a junior should be aiming for a paid internship. Haha, it seems as though unpaid is bitch work resume fillers for sophomore year and younger.
I did an unpaid internship, and it was definitely a worthwhile experience. Granted, the internship was front-office with a large firm and would have been paid were it not for the fact the economy was going to shit around us, but I would highly recommend it regardless. There's no particular reason though that you can't take 6 classes and do an unpaid internship; just set your calendar so all of your classes are Tuesday/Thursday. None of the classes you have at any of those schools will be challenging enough that you can't do all your studying in a few hours on the weekends.
I'm coming from a CC, you think I can handle 6 classes at a school like (baruch, pace, fordham)? I think your idea sounds good though, but it might be a bit challenging.
all my finals would be stacked up on the same date as well...
No one really cares how many classes you take per semester, as long as you've taken enough to graduate. They'll notice you've only been going to school for a semester, and the marginal two classes won't matter, so if you really think you can't handle it, it's not worth your time
Agree with Drex. No one will give you props for taking an extra class. Focus more on getting an internship in the field you want. Even if it's unpaid, get course credit. Experience is valuable to have on your resume in this market or any market but these days, recruiters can be extra selective. The onlly opportunity cost of gettign the unpaid intern ship is A) the money you could have earned working at MickyD's or B) the extra two courses you could have taken that probably won't do anything for you.
So it looks like the job experience is the way to go. If you were going out for a hedge fund and didn't have any experience in that environment, why would anyone hire you over someone that did? Because of an extra micro/macro class? Not likely. An extra stats/programming course? Then maybe. But you'd be taking those classes before graduation anyway.
Thanks guy, so the general advice is work for unpaid internship while you're going to class. Also am i suppose to hide my previous college or list everything?
You'll have to list it until you have a GPA at your new school, but after that hide it - I know guys who went to community college before transferring who keep that fact well-concealed
Also what i meant was, do I bring up my story how I messed up school when I was earlier?
I'm face with either telling them and showed them how I've grown over the years or just completely ignore it and hopefully won't go too far into my past. If this sound confusing, I've wrote an detailed background of myself on the top. Thanks for your help Drex
No need to mention it.
Work exp. Work exp. Work exp. Get some good finance work experience. Start with unpaid it that's your option. Take your time with school if that's possible or palatable to you. Get some finance work experience and you'll greatly improve your situation
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