Part time internship while pursuing MFE?

[falcon]

Is it a wise idea to do a part-time internship during the academic terms, as I take 3~4 courses simultaneously?

My background is in electrical engineering, and therefore I feel the need in acquiring experiences via quantitative internships to make myself competitive when I look for a fulltime.

Also, what are some good ways in securing a part-time internship?

Thank you.

 

[Andy Nguyen]

You won't have enough time to do the HW, let alone taking 3-4 courses with an internship. If the internship is somewhat meaningful (you will learn some critical skills or knowledge), it will take take and affect your study.
Not sure what your employment status is but if you are on student visa, you may want to check the policy.

 

[falcon]

Thanks for the input, Andy.
I'm a permanent resident, so I fortunately have a much easier time with the visa policies.
But I do understand that it may be burdensome.

In undergraduate (ECE), I've always taken +20 credits/semester, and as much as 26 credits/semester, and managed a good grade, so I thought I might able to handle 12 credits and ~10 hours/week of part-time internship. But then, even if I were to do that, you make a legit point that it wouldn't be as effective as if I were to purely focus on one task.

My main concern is that I am coming directly from undergrad with no experience in finance. Further, Columbia MAFN seems to have poor career support, and thus I feel I should start building my resume and experiences early to give me better fulltime opportunities.

 

[Jose T]

I guess this post is from a couple weeks ago, but I'll just chime in.

I did a part-time internship while taking 3 classes last semester. The internship was pretty meaningful ; many of the tasks were harder than things I've done in classes. And they were much more applied. I worked 16 hrs a week (and am still at the same place for the summer).

My grades did drop from last semester to this one, but I still did fine.

To me the benefits are:

-Finding an internship might be easier in the year b/c there are fewer people looking (though I don't know b/c I didn't have to look for an internship for the summer).
-More experience that is not academic is a plus on the resume
-It's a nice change of pace from classes, which can be highly theoretical
-It's a boost to motivation to get outside the academic vacuum and see why the math / coding stuff is useful

The last thing was big for me b/c I didn't have quant finance experience before enrolling in MS.

Not to say what Andy said is not true. But just try to gauge what you can handle and do that. Personally, I thought the Fall semester was more stressful when I had 4 classes versus the Spring when I had 3 classes + part-time internship.