Internship with a low GPA

Career Opportunities & Internships
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<p>I'm a declared Econ major at one of the public ivy universities right now. Due to a number of personal and family reasons, I did very poorly my freshman year of college. I'm trying to bring my GPA right now (it's a 2.345 and my semester GPA was a 3.175) but I'm desperately hoping to land some sort of internship next summer, preferably in something related to finance/economics/etc. What are my chances like and is there anything I can do (apart from raising my GPA) to boost my chances of landing an internship?</p>

<p>I've heard from some people that since I eventually want to do something along the lines of investment banking, it might help if I start trading my own portfolio. Would it be safe to assume my portfolio would have to be doing very well for this to affect my chances? I have a very small portfolio right now and I can't afford to invest more because of extenuating circumstances in my family.</p>

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<p>I don’t think the trading idea is a good one - I’m not in the finance industry or anything like that, but I get the feeling that more likely than not, you’d end up with less money and job prospects that are no better than before. Trying to spin yourself as some kind of whiz kid is easier said than done, as you noted.</p>

<p>I really don’t know how you’d get around the GPA issue. If your Econ major GPA is above a 3.0, that’s what I’d be putting on resumes.</p>

<p>Here are some random thoughts:

  • If your GPA isn’t where you want it to be by the end of this academic year, you could take summer courses (easy ones!) to make your older grades have less of an impact on your GPA. It’s usually pretty easy to transfer units from an in-state community college too if you don’t live near your university.
  • You might just have to forgo getting a “real” internship this coming summer, and look at something more conventional, or maybe even temp work, which can expose you to lots of different businesses.
  • Of course, the ultimate boost to your chances would be … well, just having connections.</p>

<p>I don’t know if this was actually helpful at all, but good luck anyway.</p>