Summer Internship
The Summer Internships will contribute significantly to the program’s success.
Students develop practical experience from internships in industry, enabling them to build confidence and compete successfully with other job candidates for placement upon completion of their degree. As graduate students with highly developed Financial Mathematics skills, they are sought after and are typically given tasks and projects during the internship that utilize their considerable skills. It is often the case that employers use such internship programs as a way to identify candidates for permanent hire. In addition, students compete for these positions and in doing so utilize the placement skills – in personal presentation and communication, introduced within the degree program – which will serve them throughout their careers.
We intend to work aggressively to build internship opportunities for our students, by establishing and cultivating links to the finance industry. Several avenues will be exploited to do this. First, many of the large Wall Street institutions have formal internship programs at many levels (undergraduate, MBA, graduate) that accept candidates competitively from throughout academia; we will certainly identify these programs to our students and encourage and support their efforts to compete for these positions. Next, as a large number of Hopkins graduates traditionally pursue careers in financial services, we will look to develop internship opportunities for MSE in Financial Mathematics students at the firms of these alumni. In addition, we will continually seek to develop relationships with firms in the industry where their proximity to campus (in the Baltimore – Washington area) provides a unique opportunity for professional contacts, that could lead to internship opportunities. Finally, the envisioned senior practitioner we bring on-board would play a critical role in this, invoking relationships, contacts, and a familiarity with the industry to develop the internship opportunities needed.
While every effort will be made to place all students who wish to be placed in an internship, those that do not participate in the internship program will be expected to pursue an approved project or activity instead. The summer provides an ideal time for those students who choose a thesis to be gainfully engaged.