How much is your vacation time worth?
This spring break, some sophomores are sacrificing cruises to Cancun or time at home to get a head start on careers in finance through week-long, unpaid internships.
These work experiences for college students are an emerging trend in the financial industry and allow interns to gain early, fast exposure to certain firms, said David Lapinski, assistant director of employer relations at the Career Center.
"It's not something that's become commonplace yet," he said. "But employers are really trying to identify their recruiting pool early on... and a lot of students are trying to gain additional lines on their resume."
Many sophomores seeking the internships said working in finance over spring break would give them an edge during the interview process for prestigious summer positions after junior year.
"It's just to get the foot in the door, to have your name down for the company, so you can apply for internships later on," said sophomore David Yi, who is interviewing for the Securities Division Spring Program at Goldman Sachs Group Inc.
Yi, like other students pursuing these internships, said he had no reservations about forfeiting vacation plans for the unpaid position, adding that the program presents a rare chance for sophomores to gain early access to the investment-banking world.
Lapinski said Goldman is the only investment bank currently offering a spring break program through the Career Center, but some students said they have found other internships for the break independently.
Although a week-long program cannot offer the full experience of a typical eight-week summer program, students said one week on the job can still give them the insight they need to determine plans for future summers and postgraduate employment.
"I'm trying to decide what kind of career path I want to take, and I decided this would be a quick way to see one particular area of the business," said sophomore Mary Bohan, who will be working for the Royal Bank of Scotland in London this March.
Programs like the one at Goldman seek to maximize interns' time at the company by rotating them through a series of positions within one area, according to Duke's eRecruiting Web site.
Not only will students add quality experience to their resumes, but the interns at firms like Goldman can also expect networking opportunities and a valuable introduction to the workplace culture, Lapinski said.
"You're not going to gain extensive background of the details of the job within a week," he said. "You're gaining exposure to the volume of the work and the expectations that are going into it."
If the week-long internship is not consistent with what students are looking for postgraduation, students said they will have avoided a wasted summer working in an industry to which they are not suited.
"A week is preferable to spending six or eight weeks of my summer doing that and deciding on week two I hate it," said sophomore Corinne Grzybowski, who is also interviewing for the program at Goldman.
Grzybowski, like most of the sophomores pursuing Spring break internships, said such opportunities and their peers' interest in them seemed uncommon.
"Either [sophomores] haven't started thinking about it or have already made plans," she said, adding that work experiences during spring break are not well-publicized.
Goldman Sachs did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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