Undergraduate Planning

Summer Between Freshman and Sophomore Year:

• Enjoy your summer break; get a part time job and spend quality time with family and friends.

• If you can find an internship, work hard, learn as much as you can, and present yourself to the best of your abilities. You do not need to know everything when you go into an internship as a rising sophomore, it is a place for you to learn and show that you have an interest in that specific profession or career path.

• If you are taking summer classes, work hard but find time to destress.

Sophomore Year Fall Semester:

• Continue being active on campus.

• Apply to investing organizations.

  • Speak with students in these organization to gain a better understand of the world they do along with demonstrating your interest in the club.

• Start thinking about careers that you would like to go into by getting in contact with people at firms that you aspire to work at or people who are in positions that are of great interest to you. This can be from references from professors, cold emailing from LinkedIn, or connections from family and friends.

• Joining organization

• Meeting with professor for advice or help with classes to get a better understanding of the material you are learning and how it can be transformed into real-world examples/practice.

• Look into taking winter classes.

• Attend company events on campus where you can learn about careers and different firms along with specific details that would help you in possible interviews in the future.

  • Make sure to take advantage of zoom info session since you can do it from the comfort of your home/dorm room/anywhere.

• Attend Business Horizons. As a sophomore there will be a limited number of opportunities but don’t think that you only need to talk to the big firms. Speak with smaller firms to have a greater chance of landing an internship and getting a more hands on internship experience if you are given the opportunity.

• NETWORKING: This is the key year to build a network of contacts that can lead to the internship interviews, internships and full-time jobs that are your goals.

  • Continue to attend Business Horizons and talk to the employers that attend it.  Follow up with the ones that you are interested in for potential internships.

  • Continue to attend in-person and Zoom company presentations and follow up with the speakers who are in employers or career paths that you are interested in.

  • Speak with juniors and seniors who are pursuing career paths that you are interested in.  They can be great sources of information, advice, and contacts.

  • Use LinkedIn, faculty, alumni, and older students to get additional contacts at employers that you are interested in.  Also build networks of contacts in the career paths and geographic regions you want to end up in.

  • If you fit into a diversity category (Black, Latino/Hispanic, Native American, Female, LGBT, Military Veteran, etc.), seek out diversity programs and networking events at firms in which you are interested.  There are also diversity related organizations that can help you connect with people.

  • Speak to as many relevant contacts as possible to learn about opportunities, refine your career goals, find internship opportunities, and get prepared for the interview process.

  • Do not get too discouraged if you do not get a sophomore internship. You still have one more summer left before graduation – use your network to work towards an internship for that summer.

  • Remember that this is a game of odds – you may need to reach out to 50-100 people to get 1 internship offer.  Of those 50 to 100 emails, 10-40 may agree to speak with you, 5-10 may agree to give you an interview, and a subset of them may give you a 2nd round interview.

Sophomore Year Winter Semester:

• Have a fun break, spend time with family and friends!

• Reflect on your third semester at college and look for improvements and/or changes that would help you grow and become a better student.

• If you are taking winter class, work hard but spend time with family and friends to destress.

Sophomore Year Spring Semester:

• With a small understanding of how college life works, become more active on campus.

  • Joining organization

  • Meeting with professor for advice or help with classes to get a better understanding of the material you are learning and how it can be transformed into real-world examples/practice.

• Attend company events on campus where you can learn about careers and different firms along with specific details that would help you in possible interviews in the future.

  • Make sure to take advantage of zoom info session since you can do it from the comfort of your home/dorm room/anywhere.

• Look into a possible summer class that would help you move along with your course work at Virginia Tech

• If targeting internships in Investment Banking, Private Equity, or Private Credit, recruitment starts in you Spring semester of sophomore year so become active in the process of meeting with recruiters, speaking with alumni, and speaking with professors about positions in these opportunities.

• Attend Business Horizons. As a sophomore there will be a limited number of opportunities but don’t think that you only need to talk to the big firms. Speak with smaller firms to have a greater chance of landing an internship and getting a more hands on internship experience if you are given the opportunity.