<p>I've started looking for summer internships. I'm currently a junior math major and physics minor. I think I am interested in going into finance or accounting. The problem is that I haven't taken any courses in either of these areas. The only thing I have is one introductory course in economics. </p>
<p>Anyway, I have a lot of experience in IT and programming used to be a hobby of mine in high school. I have self taught myself a number of different programming languages, but I'm not really interested in going into that field anymore. However, I'm not completely opposed to applying to a few of these types of internships simply as a backup plan. Doing this stuff for one summer won't kill me. I just don't want to do it for the rest of my life.</p>
<p>I had an appointment with career services two weeks ago, and the lady there just talked a mile a minute. She was very much into pushing me into doing an internship for credit which really isn't practical for me. It would cost too much to do it. She really helped me with my resume though and tore it apart. I think its in much better shape now. My school doesn't really have a lot of math and science majors since its a liberal arts school, so the career services is much more oriented towards things like english, psychology (by far the biggest major and department), and so on.</p>
<p>I guess what I'm really wondering is what are the chances for a pure math major ending up in finance if I don't have any experience/coursework? This is just a goal for the summer. </p>
<p>My long term goal is to get a phd in math, and by this summer I will have a solid year of work with a professor. I just need to make money this summer to help my parents pay for school. So, I figured instead of getting a job at a supermarket or something, now is the time to try to put my skills to use.</p>
<p>If anyone has any other suggestions for possible fields to look into that would help a lot. I should also mention the other problem I have is that I haven't taken any statistics courses. Which a lot of internships I've looked at so far for math majors would really like an applicant to have.</p>
<p>I applied to a few internships in finance/accounting at Intel and IBM, and one local bank. I also applied to some energy company done the street from my school that is looking for math majors. I'm not completely sure what the internships at the energy company entails though.</p>
<p>I’m not sure if you can still do this since it might be too late, but you sound like the perfect candidate for the sales and trading division (or the technology divisions) for investment banks. You might still be able to apply to JP Morgan, Barclays Capital, etc…</p>
<p>You might want to start looking into those quickly since their applications are about to close (if they haven’t already).</p>
<p>Sometimes, math, physics, and engineering graduates go into quantitative finance because their math skills are much stronger than those of business majors. So if that is of interest to you, it should be worth looking into applying.</p>
<p>I don’t know about investment banks. It doesn’t seem like I have a chance, because I don’t go to a top school, and my gpa probably isn’t high enough to even be considered. I applied to a ton of internships today with a bunch of different insurance companies though. </p>
<p>I looked into some actuarial positions too. I’ve never really seriously considered becoming an actuary before, and after looking at a sample actuary exam, I’m not quite sure if I could even do it. It looks really challenging. Honestly, I think the math subject gre looks less scary than an actuarial exam. </p>
<p>I plan on applying to a ton more internships. Anywhere and everywhere. Is that a good strategy? I’m just really worried that I won’t end up getting anything, since I don’t go to a top school, and my gpa is only a 3.35.</p>
<p>You’d be surprised how desperate investment banks are for physics and math people. Besides, I didn’t advise you to apply to the investment banking side of an investment bank, I advised you to apply to the sales and trading division or the technology division of an investment bank - these divisions don’t necessarily look for top schools and your gpa is OK. </p>
<p>I’m doing an actuarial internship (haven’t taken any of the exams though) right now and I can tell you (through other people’s experiences) that if you try hard and are willing to study, passing the probability exam is definitely doable.</p>
<p>Applying to a lot of internships is definitely a good idea, just make sure to personalize your resume a bit (to fit the internship) before submitting your app.</p>
<p>I just interviewed for an internship at a pretty big firm (I’m an English major). One of the things the interviewers told me was that economics and business courses are pretty meaningless because they only teach “theory.” What’s far more important is work experience and internships because it’s there that you develop applicable skills. The only thing those economics and business courses might do is show you have a quantitative background, which as a math major, you obviously have down. So yes, internships are key and are much more important than any course you could possibly take. Personally, I find the “liberal arts/doing tons of internships” the preferable path. Best of luck.</p>
<p>I applied to JP Morgan, Prudential, Liberty Mutual, and will apply to Fidelity. I also started looking through Morgan Stanely’s listings but my chances don’t seem to be that good because the minimum gpa for a bunch of them was 3.5. </p>
<p>Also, I got my first rejection already. It was an IBM IT internship.</p>
<p>My school is also having a career fair on wednesday. It just happens to be exactly during the time I have class, but I’m going to skip one of my classes to go.</p>