<p>I am a senior majoring in Accounting and will graduate with 150 credits. I go to a great school and have a very high GPA ,3.87. I have very good people skills and interview well. I have held leadership position here on campus. However, I do not have an internship. Can I still get a Big Four job with no internship? How much of a disadvantage am I in. I not understood internships because one only has one chance to get good grades, but a life time to get a job. If your are working while you are in school and do bad, that will can never be made up.</p>
<p>You can still get a full time offer even if you didn't get an internship. Going to a great school helps, but you don't even need that. So you're still in a position to get one. They're not really all that difficult to get compared to other types of firms.</p>
<p>Redhare317, I see. So, I am assuming you must know a few people that got Big Fours offers with no work experience.</p>
<p>I'm just surprised you didn't get an internship during the summer. Curious why you chose not too?</p>
<p>EY did offer me an internship ,but I had to take 15 summer credit to graduate on time(May 07). It will also allow me to have 150 credits by graduation date. It was a trade off. I figured if they wanted to give me an internship ,than hopefully they will want to hire me in Oct for next September.</p>
<p>if u got one, that means u've got the potential!</p>
<p>Yeah, I would expect you to get a full time offer, and I'm sure you can explain what happened with that EY internship. It's good that you're doing all the 150 during your undergrad studies, which means you'll be able to take the CPA exam faster than others.</p>
<p>yeah overall i think thats pretty smart.. also U of Deleware is a solid university... a 3.85 plus is going to look very good for you... i dunno personally i would have taken the internship.. but what you did does make some sense... you shouldnt have many problems gettin a job... good luck</p>
<p>A couple comments:</p>
<p>"Can I still get a Big Four job with no internship? How much of a disadvantage am I in."</p>
<p>There's no reason that you would not be able to get a job without an internship. Remember that full-time interviews are, for the most part, people who have not had internships. When people intern at the Big 4, they receive full-time offers upon completion and the vast majority of interns end up accepting those offers, leaving them little reason to interview for full-time jobs. In other words, when you interview, you won't be competing against people with much prior experience. The fact that you were already offered an internship puts you at an advantage.</p>
<p>"I not understood internships because one only has one chance to get good grades, but a life time to get a job. If your are working while you are in school and do bad, that will can never be made up."</p>
<p>Most internships are during the summer, when most students are not taking classes; therefore, having an internship should not have an effect on your grades. Also, once you receive a full-time offer at the end of an internship, your grades aren't going to matter much. Not that you can go and start failing your classes; however, your undergrad GPA will mean little for the rest of your life. The vast majority of entry-level positions are filled through internships.</p>
<p>I'm not going to say that you made the wrong decision, however, since I went a rather similar route (though for different reasons--I needed to take a summer classes to fulfill a requirement for a second degree) and received offers from my top choices (two of them were Big 4). I didn't have an official internships. I did work part-time at a small firm during tax season doing tax and a little auditing.</p>
<p>When you get to your first round interviews, keep in mind that your school and GPA won't matter at all. Be prepared to demonstrate the qualities that they want and know how to handle behavioral interviews (though I'm assuming you do if you've been through the internship interview process).</p>
<p>I personally think you made the wrong decision george, but I truly believe it will be more or less the same. Accepting the internship is "less riskier" than not having any experience after graduation. I have confidence that you will get the full time offer anyway. You said you got offered an internship position, those positions are very competitive the full time interviews will be similar.</p>
<p>Ok great, it nice to hear all your input. I will take it into consideration.</p>