Business Internship for a High Schooler?

<p>How would a high schooler go about getting a business internship? With local companies, big corporations, etc?
What do you suggest searching for when looking for an unpaid business internship?</p>

<p>I don’t know if you’ll be able to get a legitimate internship with a big time company due to your age and experiences but you could try non-profit firms. I would honestly just focus on doing well and volunteering wherever you can. Go to a solid college and then start applying for internships.</p>

<p>I do volunteer, but unfortunately I lack experience in the business world. By non-profit firms. do you just mean volunteering?
What I’m looking for is experience; any opinions on the possibility of an unpaid internship?</p>

<p>I am consistently lampooned for saying this, but I strongly believe in what I say, so here goes.</p>

<p>Getting an internship as a high school student is both unlikely and unnecessary. Internships are most useful when you are a rising senior in college or a graduate/professional student. You may find “internships” as a high school student, but legitimate ones are few and far between.</p>

<p>It is honestly very helpful for you to try to find a job as a lifeguard, a dishwasher, a landscaper, an ice cream scooper, etc. They are not glamorous jobs, but they give you experience holding responsibility, maintaining a schedule, etc. If you are applying to colleges, they do not expect you to have had internships, and unless you can show that it was a legitimate internship, they are certainly not going to place any extra weight on it. When you are applying for jobs after college, you are probably not even going to have high school stuff on your resume, so whether you get coffee for partners at a law firm as an “internship” or scoop ice cream at your neighborhood ice cream shop will not matter. :)</p>

<p>I’m a HS junior who got lucky by knowing someone. I got an internship for this summer in a small business. I get to create financial models to determine profitability and viability of expansion. Pretty excited for it, and as someone who wants to major in economics, definitely helps my resume.</p>

<p>^^ Not to be a debbie downer, but I really doubt they would let you make legitimate financial models. That requires a lot of a knowledge in Finance and advanced Excel programs which I don’t think juniors in HS have? Certainly, not saying you may not have it, but the typical HS kid doesn’t know much about Finance or how to use excel. I just find it hard to believe a business would give such a big responsibility to an HS intern…</p>

<p>email / call people at local companies, thats probably your best bet</p>

<p>thinkerer, I was actually thinking about doing that! Do you have any helpful tips as to what I should say if I were to email/call them, considering they aren’t actively seeking interns?</p>

<p>bump</p>

<p>any ideas?</p>