Ok, so I am a senior in college with basically a **** ton of choices at this point in my life.

Let me start with what my plan is right at this second:

1) Finish spring quarter in June, at which point I will have 9 hours of schooling left to get my Finance degree. Around June 10th go to Valencia, Spain and be a part of an Au Pair program, basically I live with a family, they provide a room, food, do my laundry, and give me ~200 Euros a month for pocket money. All they ask is that I spend around 3-4 hours a day hanging out with their kids so that they learn English. Basically I will wake up around 7am, spend 2 hours with them, take them to school, have the rest of the day to myself, and pick them up from school and hang out with them some more. You get weekends free to do whatever you want, and the families are flexible if you want a long weekend. I have 3 really close friends that live there, so I would know them. I also have a contact who runs a real estate brokerage firm. So since I don't want future employers to think I just took a whole summer vacation, I will work for the real estate firm during the day, but not get paid for it. I can add that to my resume. In September I return, take my 3 classes, study for the CFA (Chartered Financial Analyst- basically CPA equivalent for Finance people). Take the CFA level 1 exam in December, graduate in December, apply for full time jobs in January

2) An Investment Bank in NYC contacted me today, saying I am a finalist for their summer analyst internship. This will do wonders for my resume and career path. It's the exact field that I want to go into, and these types of internships almost always lead to full-time offers (if you do what you need to do)and especially if they know I will be graduating only 3 months after the internship. This also will improve my chances to get into the bigger firms such as Goldman Sachs, BofA, JP Morgan etc. The problem is that the internship is completely unpaid. They don't pay for relocation costs, or even an hourly wage. I don't know how much you all know about these jobs, but analysts typically work 60-80 hours per week. I doubt they will have an intern work these types of hours, but I doubt I will be able to get a part time job to offset costs. I know I will learn a lot, gain invaluable experience, and get to live in NYC for the summer, but this is going to be very expensive. Living costs are high, and with no income just basic living costs will be hard to come up with. But basically it would be do the internship, come back home, finish school in december while studying/taking the CFA

c) I could just finish spring quarter in June, and then go in the summer and graduate in August. This seems like the stupidest option to me because of the fact the job market sucks right now, and I have these other two options.

WWOOT do?

Maybe not what WOULD you do, but maybe offer up some advice to help me think through this.

lol finance degree

might as well be a communications degree these days

Man, it is alpha-male overachieving testosterone crazies like you that made it harder than it should have been for me to get the job I have now

So you're asking if you should take the I-banking internship that you applied to, or do nothing all summer?

If you ask me, any job where you work 60-80 hours a week, UNPAID is a waste of life. Even though it's a stepping stone, to be paying to live in NYC while doing that it is totally not worth it. It shows dedication yes, but is a waste of your life. That's so much time you're not getting back. The juice is not worth the squeeze.

Do it without thinking twice.

Admit it. Au pair jobs like this are effectively a vacation. It would be a heck of a lot of fun, and you'd get to travel to an absolutely beautiful part of the earth. Don't get me wrong, I've got nothing against it. It's not a job though, it's a vacation.

I'd be surprised if a reputable firm would let you volunteer (or work for free). Too many issues from a legal standpoint. Since you're not being paid, what incentive do you have to perform well for them while on the job?

I stopped reading at this point. Isn't this your answer?

See my previous response. I'd be really surprised if a major firm is employing unpaid interns these days.

Find a paid internship (doesn't have to be in NYC), start your CFA studying immediately and sign up for the level 1 exam as soon as it's next offered. Also, tell your friends in Spain that it's been real and that you'll next see them in 15 years when they're picking up the garbage in front of your house every week.

Au-Pair Job would definitely be a vacation. The real estate agency is like a 1-3 man gig that my contact currently has running. And he told me I could come over today and work for him but he cant afford to pay me.

And for the investment banking internship being unpaid, it is unpaid. It explicitly states it on the website. Not only is the undergrad summer analyst position unpaid, the MBA summer associate internship is unpaid as well. I don't get how a company thinks someone can just live in NYC and not have any income, even if its only for 3 months.

QFT... take the au pair job. You will have the rest of your life to work your ass off if you so choose...

Yeah don't even bother going to your last year of college even. You can just work really hard later to make up for it.

I interned (paid, brag) with Morgan Stanley before my senior year, and it will definitely set you apart when you're finished with school and looking for jobs. I think any answer other then "take the internship" would be a mistake, find a way to make it happen. Also, why not start studying now and take level I of the CFA in June?

W-R-O-N-G

But take the job man...it is HUGE for your career and you are at the BEST age to be working those hours.

This may have been true every year for the past twenty years, but are you sure it is as true today?


how is it a waste of your life? he had to pay for college too. dont you have to leave OOT soon?

Because if he dedicates himself to looking for what is availible I'm sure he could find something where he gets paid to spend the same amount of time, and will carry the same amount of weight with the company who looks at it.

Don't cream yourself just yet, I know you have nothing better to enjoy in your life but to see someone get exiled, but when I leave I'll be back on a new name on a new IP the next day

Your hyperbole is endearing Preki. If that's what he wanted to do then he should do it.

OP, my advice is do what you think will bring you the most satisfaction, which is something only you really know. Don't worry about what other people would do or think you should do. Unless that of course is what you live for...

edit: I interned (brag, maybe slightly better, prolly not) with Merrill Last year and it was paid and it was in downtown Cincinnati (beat). Just my luck a firm in NYC wants me but they cant pay me (beat)

Anyway, back to your posts.....Thats what i WANTED to do.... but I'm taking 19 hours this quarter, and 18 hours next quarter to make next fall easier.

At first I thought it would be beneficial to study for the CFA NOW because I'm in all my upper level finance classes, but I figured that would just cause me to slack off.

The real reason I'm not taking it in June is because I've basically decided on NYC or Spain for the summer which has made me get a job to start saving up. I just got back from Europe in December after spending 4 months there and spending every dime to my name, so I needed a job. I'm working 25+ hours a week at work, and taking 19 hours at school which also include roughly 20 hours per week in homework, so I figured CFA in june= bad idea.

I want to get my upper level finance classes out of the way, bust out this internship in NYC or go to Spain, and come back and study for the CFA in december when I only have 9 hours of school + no job + most of my friends will have graduated. Also, those 9 hours consist of Art History, Writing for Business, and Psychology 101, so it's safe to say I can dedicate a lot of my time to the CFA

The thing that pisses me off is if this internship was paid I would take it in a heart beat. It's what i WANT to do because I can always go to Spain in December when I graduate. But if I take this job and its unpaid I will likely go into debt paying for it, and having to work RIGHT out of school in December, which isn't a problem, but I was hoping for ~1 month off.

Still though, every time I think about the internship I get excited, so if they tell me they want me (officially) it's going to be a hard decision.

Doesn't this depend largely on what firm you will be working for over the summer?

Also, the answer seems to obviously be take the internship.

I'm working 10 hrs a week unpaid MBA internship in Los Angeles and it SUCKS not getting paid. But it is for a company I wouldn't mind working for, so I'm sucking it up. A full-time offer isn't guaranteed, however.

I can't imagine doing it for 60hrs/wk and in NYC. I think you will hate your life very quickly. Can you scrape 10k(bare minimum) together to live in NYC for 3 months?

Unpaid internships are a fact of life in this economy. They suck, but ya gotta do what ya gotta do.

this is an absurdly dumb and uninformed statement.

take the internship

It cuts into my golf-playing time during my final yr of grad school!

An internship is education. You're paying for college, and the internship is free except for the cost of living. Aren't your parent's paying for college? Can't they spend $10,000 on an apartment in the city for 3 months? Whether or not you get paid for this internship should not be a factor at all.

srsly