Last summer, I worked as an equity research intern at Susquehanna International Group, a proprietary trading firm. That’s a lot of words, but in simple terms, I researched stocks all summer, and I plan to continue to do so after I graduate. While it sounds like I have my career figured out, I’m still learning, and I promise I had no idea what I wanted to do when I started my internship search.
From my time at Amherst as a math and econ double major, I knew I wanted to do something quantitative and probably finance-related, but I felt pretty far behind. People I knew in my position already had internships they wanted and were flaunting them on LinkedIn. I often felt overwhelmed and thought I was not good enough.
Funnily enough, LinkedIn was how I found out about the internship I ended up getting. My advice is to follow all the places you would want to work at on LinkedIn to find out when their internship applications open. If you don’t know where to start, explore early careers or specific career communities on the Loeb Center website as I know I would not have found my interests without them.
Then, shoot your shot. You’re never going to get what you want if you don’t apply. I thought I was a longshot, but in the end, through some hard work and maybe some luck I landed the internship.
Once I was there, I knew it was a career I wanted to pursue, because quantitative with qualitative, something Amherst’s liberal arts education prepared me perfectly for.
