I’m a female rising junior at NYU CAS studying economics. I have a 3.03 GPA and I want to recruit in the coming fall, however, I worry that I won’t be taken seriously by any of the firms that recruit at my campus. I’m not sure which career path attracts me right now, to be honest I’m very confused because I don’t come from a heavy business/finance background. I know I want to work in finance, perhaps consulting or a back-office job at a bank. I’m still doing more research to find out what attracts me. This summer, I interned at a start-up consulting firm. Aside from that, I have some other start-up experiences from my freshman summer and fall. I feel like I don’t have a good enough GPA or strong internship experience to get taken seriously for a junior summer internship. I need some advice as to what I should do, what I can improve on (obviously the GPA is a given), and what I should look into. I’m very, very lost 
There are lots of jobs in finance which have nothing to do with banking. Your state (I don’t know where you are from) has a team which handle capital investment for bridges, tunnels, stadium and airport construction, etc. This team works with banks, ratings companies, the media, and a wide range of outside companies to figure out what to spend and how to pay for it. That’s finance.
The federal government hires people who can trace assets- whether for terrorism or tax avoidance or laundering money from drug selling or any other nefarious reason. That’s finance.
Art museums hire people who work with insurance companies and security companies and heating/air conditioning companies to sign contracts with the right vendors at the right price to protect priceless artwork. That’s finance.
The UN hires people to figure out if the money they are spending on measles vaccines in Pakistan are being spent in the way they were intended and if so, what the benefits are. The World Bank hires people to figure out if it’s better to lend 1,000 women in the Sudan $100 each for small scale farming, or to lend 100 women $1,000 each to become midwives so they can reduce maternal and infant mortality.
You need to spend some time at career services to see where kids who DON’T go into banking end up (lots of places) and you should talk to your professors to get their ideas about what you’d be good at and what would interest you.
And you should read- incessantly. The Economist, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times. Every article you read on a business topic is going to help you narrow down what ou want to do.
Talk to your instructors and department personnel for their recommendations.
Work with your placement office on your resume. They will have ideas on how to make your resume really stand out for the experience you do have. They also may have some ideas on cities where there are good internships but fewer colleges trying to place people there for the summer. My daughter’s friend went from Florida to Alaska for an internship this summer.
I am from NYC and plan to stay here for internships and for a job after college. I can’t move to a different city because I have to take care of my family. I commute from home to school during the school year. I guess I need advice on how to get past the GPA weed-out filter for on campus recruiting. Some companies don’t look at candidates below a certain GPA, and I fear I won’t even be considered because of it.
You need to find out who doesn’t look. My son (in IR) had a similar problem, caused mostly by poor Arabic grades as a freshman. He ended up highlighting that he was on the Dean’s List senior year and putting his senior year GPA in addition to his overall GPA. He ended up with an internship at the Clinton Foundation (though not till after he graduated.)
He spent the summers before he graduated working a campus job at Tufts where he was given increasing responsibilities each summer. The skills he learned from those experiences are a major part of his resume.
You may need to look beyond campus recruiting for an internship, too. My D1 and her BF researched and applied for dozens of internships not recruited for on their campus. I noticed that LinkedIn had a surprising number of IT internship listings last spring; I assume you would find some Finance ones as well. And if you don’t have a LinkedIn profile yet, create one right away. Link with people from your past internships, older students, etc.