The Student Room Group

Second year, non penultimate year internships

Hi.

As a second year language student, i was very unhappy to find a large number of internship places specifying that only penultimate year students are elegible. As i have to spend a year abroad, it will be tricky applying for and attending interviews for interships when i actually am in my penultimate year and so i was rather hoping to be able to apply for one this year.

There are certainly a few institutions out there that have welcomed an application, those being WestLB and GS. There are a few more who do not specifically state that internships are for penultimate year students, those being MS, Morley FM, and Citigroup. However, many are looking for students to go straight onto the graduate programme the next year, which i am unable to do.

My question to you is has anyone applied as a 1st year or 2nd year on a 4 year course for an internship and been accepted/not been refused an application? If so, which internship was this for?
Reply 1
Many people do apply while on a year abroad. A girl at the Barclays assessment centre had flown back from Canada for it. It's annoying, but the penultimate thing is because they're using the internships as a way of advertising their graduate programmes and getting people onto them.
"Internships are a ten week paid interview for a place on the graduate programme"

And so be it.
Reply 3
Apply for easter placements, they're for people like you :smile:
And like Drogue said, theres nothing stopping you from applying when you're abroad! Good luck with it all.
Reply 4
mangomaz
Apply for easter placements, they're for people like you :smile:
And like Drogue said, theres nothing stopping you from applying when you're abroad! Good luck with it all.



Hi.

Thanks for the responses. I'm not criticising anyone on here, but i do think that there should be an emphasis placed on trying to 'help people out' if at all possible when answering people's questions. Generally i do a lot of research in finding out what is available and by asking a certain question it is to try and gauge someones opinion/experience, which generally cant be found out by doing a google search.

Anyway, i thought it might be helpful if a posted my research for those people who are 1st/2nd years who wanted to apply for an internship as they are keen to do so. My view is that any employer would recognise a student with potential who would be a strong innovator for their company, that student being available to attend the graduate programme the year after or not.

Here is a good link where some of the dogsbody work has already been done:

http://www.careers.ox.ac.uk/homepage/whatson/we2006

I bring to your attention firms such as:

Ernst and Young, Proctor and Gamble and Morgan Stanley

who say that there is a possibility of 1st year students gaining an internship.

In my experience there are also a few other firms who accept 1st year students or have not expressed a negative view on them applying for an internship. These are:

KPMG, WestLB, Morley Fund Management, Barclays Capital and i would recommend the Shell STEP programme (note: this is only available to 2nd years on a 4 yea course).

It would be nice for other people to share their application experiences as 1st years/2nd years on a 4 year course. Or for example, people to reccomend easter placements to apply for.

all the best.