Advice Needed: Take non quant internship or not?

[eustudent]

Hey everyone,
I am currently an econ student at a top Business school in Europe who wants to break into trading (sell-side or prop) with a quant focus. My goal is to apply to multiple MFE programs at the beginning of 2025.

My dilemma is that I have recently applied to many global markets internships, specifically targeting trading desks. However, I only got one offer and it is far away from what I want to do (a project finance role at a BB).

I have in the past already done two internships: boutique M&A and boutique consulting, but I think that a big-name bank might help my resume when it comes to MFE recruiting. Further on, I am not sure what my chances are to secure a more quant-related internship in the near future.

Therefore I am asking whether I should take the project finance internship or rather keep looking for other internships maybe at smaller firms.

Any advice would be appreciated.

 

[MikeLawrence]

Well, work is good for money. And this still seems closer to what you want than boutique consulting, so if it's a step in the right direction and all you have then you should take it. Name brand will help too.

I say take it, since it's the best step available to you right now, and then continue to skill up when you get home from work and try to see what you can get in the future.

This assumes you really can't get anything else; if you're odds for a more relevant opportunity are decent then personally I would hold out for that. I worked at a PWM company last summer, and I got virtually nothing out of it that will help me with what I want to do. I might rather spend the summer making no money but learning a ton than spend nine hours a day twiddling my thumbs and going home to code late into the night. But that was specifically private wealth management, so not applicable to other areas of non-quant finance. If you don't end up with a good internship, then it'll become intense MFE/interview prep time.

Honestly, it depends on your current skillset. If you don't really know what you're doing still, then just take the non-quant position and figure out what you should be doing in the meantime. Maybe it's coding late into the night when you get home from work each day this summer, find your knowledge gaps. If you're fairly well prepared and know exactly how you'd fill the summer if you weren't working (so you were really fighting for good internships but it didn't pan out) it might be worth it to skill up full-time and then hit the next cycle quite a bit farther ahead than you wouldn't been.

But if you can't fill the summer with more meaningful things than the unrelated internship then just take the job and sort yourself out.