<p>I haven't been on CC for a while, nice to be back.</p>
<p>Basically, I've been going through my freshman year at an Ivy. I want to get an internship for the summer, but late March is really late for that. I wanted to intern in a neurology department, since I might consider that for a profession, or maybe look into Ibanking because the experience is nice and everyone's doing it. (not really a good reason)</p>
<p>My problem is, I totally screwed my GPA. I dropped a course, so I only took 3, and out of those three, my GPA came to about 2.9. Granted, it was in throwaway classes relative to my major (B- in Anthropology, C+ in Music, A- in a history course). </p>
<p>My essential question is, is it worth it to even try for internships given how late it is, and how bad my GPA is? More importantly, how do I go about it? Do I call/e-mail individual companies? Do I use large directories (Inroads)? I didn't try for an internship during high school, so I have no experience in doing this stuff.</p>
<p>Here is the way I see it:</p>
<p>1) You are a freshman--internships that early are great, but you won't get into the competitive programs (Sophomore year at the earliest I would say) for IB. As for neurology, I have no idea.</p>
<p>2) I don't think any investment banks will even look at someone with a GPA below 3.2 (let alone below 3.0). But more importantly, it isn't an industry you should get into because everyone is doing it (you really want to work 100 hours a week bc your friends are doing it?)</p>
<p>3) You should stick to what interests you, keep focused on what you want to do after you graduate. If you want to go into neurology, search for places that you would like to work at. Email them your resume and cross your fingers (make sure you have someone at the career center at your school look at it). </p>
<p>4)Have you contacted your career center yet? This would be the first place to go--after this, you need to keep in mind that the internship process is a proactive one. You have to do the leg-work.</p>
<p>Basically, to be brutally honest, yes, you are screwed for internships, but it certainly won't hurt for you to try.</p>
<p>Well, I'm kind of in your situation in that I go to a top school, and completely ruined my GPA second semester of freshman year due to a lot of personal issues and extenuating circumstances. It's pretty depressing when you see GPA cut offs and requirements on lots of internship descriptions. That being said, I've still held three internships (I'm currently a sophomore) with the GPA that I do have. Your low GPA doesn't mean you can't find internships if you try hard and don't mind working at a lesser known place, but it probably will bar you from bigger firms.</p>
<p>You can search for internships on your career center website (probably), craigslist (surprisingly unshady internships can be found there), monstertrak, etc. </p>
<p>And since you're a freshman, don't worry too much. You still have a lot of semesters to bring up your GPA.</p>