3 and 4 year degrees, spring weeks and summer internships

I've just completely my 1st year of a four year MSci course at Imperial. I chose not to apply for spring weeks this year with the plan to apply for a spring week in 2012 and hopefully summer intern in 2013 before I graduate in 2014.

Recently I've been thinking that I'd rather switch to the 3 year Bsc course and finish a year earlier. The problem with this is that I didn't apply for any spring weeks this year so would be applying for summer internships in 2012 without having done a spring week.

Do I have any chance of getting an offer for a summer internship without having done a spring week, or would I be better off sticking with the 4 year course so I can apply for spring weeks next year and continue with my original plan?

I don't have to make the decision about whether to go for the 3 or 4 year course till the end of my 2nd year, so could I even apply for both spring weeks and summer internships next year (at different banks since I think you can only make one application per bank per cycle?) stating a graduation date of 2014 for my spring week applications and 2013 for my summer applications? That way if I got accepted for a summer internship I could go ahead with the 3 year course but if not I could stick with the 4 year course and reapply for summer internships the following year.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Reply 1

i_hate_teeth

10

Spring weeks and other forms of work experience are valuable and highly desirable, however Spring Weeks are not a prerequisite to working in an investment bank or gaining a summer internship.

Reply 2

slylion1

11

stay on 4 years, do some token finance stuff (trading account, finance soc etc) then apply for internships from september early! say that you are on 3 years, and if you get converted then switch to 3 years at the beggining of 3rd year

Reply 3

aeonflux

OP

14

Cheers for the responses. I guess what I'm worried about is that if I just apply for summer internships next year I won't get any due to lack of experience and would have been better off if I had just applied for spring weeks.

So perhaps my best option is to mostly apply for summer internships saying I'm graduating in 2013 but to have a couple of spring week applications saying I'm graduating in 2014 as backups?

Reply 4

miiiiil

9

I am doing the MSci maths at Imperial and I'm going into 4th year in october so can give you some decent insight into this.

I havent done this myself, but some of my friends applied for internships for the summer after their second year, saying they were on a 3 year course - then if they didn't get one they would just apply again the following year. You are in a good position because you basically have 2 chances to get a summer internship.

Several people did get internships without a spring week, so thats not entirely necessary. The thing to realise is that you haven't really decided on the length of your degree yet, people in my year were changing up until march in third year! One person even moved to the three year from 4 year after exams. One of my friends is on their second internship, as they are on 4 years and did one last year too. The department is probably more lenient than you might think.

Reply 5

aeonflux

OP

14

Original post by miiiiil

I am doing the MSci maths at Imperial and I'm going into 4th year in october so can give you some decent insight into this.

I havent done this myself, but some of my friends applied for internships for the summer after their second year, saying they were on a 3 year course - then if they didn't get one they would just apply again the following year. You are in a good position because you basically have 2 chances to get a summer internship.

Several people did get internships without a spring week, so thats not entirely necessary. The thing to realise is that you haven't really decided on the length of your degree yet, people in my year were changing up until march in third year! One person even moved to the three year from 4 year after exams. One of my friends is on their second internship, as they are on 4 years and did one last year too. The department is probably more lenient than you might think.

Thanks a lot, really useful post.

3 and 4 year degrees, spring weeks and summer internships

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