By Jaimie Dougherty

During the first week of school, the 6^th floor lounge is typically alive with of students sharing stories of their summer recess. Many students use the summer between their first and second years at SIPA to complete an internship. This often takes students to far corners of the world. This year was no different except that the global recession affected the opportunities that were available to students.

For example, students looking to go into finance were often forced to look beyond the traditional firms that historically hire summer interns.“Positions on Wall Street were down,” says Meg Heenehan, Executive Director of the Office of Career Services (OCS). “We recommended that students interested in finance be flexible in their search and look for places where they could get finance experience outside of Wall Street.” This would often include looking at boutique firms, and the finance departments of companies or nonprofits.

Dario Vilchez, second year IFP student, says that though the economic downturn affected his internship search, it helped him look for different opportunities to advance his career. Over the summer, Vilchez worked in New York for Habib Bank Limited, and for the asset management division of BTGPactual in London. For those interested in finance, he urges students to “network and think outside the box. Opportunities do exist amidst this crisis.”

There were also opportunities to be involved with finance work in the developing world. Steven Sherman, also second year IFP, worked at Financial Services Volunteer Corps, a nonprofit that connects financial professionals from developed countries with finance projects in the developing world. He described the group as “sort of like Peace Corps for bankers” and says he had a valuable experience there.

However, other sectors were more insulated from the economic downturn. Development, which is a major field for SIPA students, was one of these areas. Though development organizations are struggling overall with the decrease in corporate underwriting, many NGOs do not offer paid summer positions, which has allowed them to maintain internship programs.

Federal government work was another bright spot in the intern market this past summer. Heenehan says that, with the new administration in office, the number of jobs available with the federal government has increased and that there is a lot of excitement in Washington. OCS has responded to this by increasing their employer outreach in the capital.

“The Federal government used to be hard to get into,” she says, but after years of limited hiring, they were facing an aging work force that was nearing retirement age. To reverse this trend, the Federal government is taking on more workers.