Master of Engineering Internship Program for Registered Financial Engineering Students
Program Overview
The Financial Engineering Concentration of Cornell's Master of Engineering program offers students the opportunity to apply for summer internships with financial services firms in New York City and elsewhere. The goal is to provide our graduate students with real Wall Street experience in the middle of their studies, and to enable them to obtain summer internships that often lead to full time job opportunities. The program also offers financial services firms a way to tap into an exclusive talent pool.
While internships are available to all continuing students at Cornell and are often obtained through Cornell Engineering (and central) Career Services, students in the Financial Engineering Concentration have access to specialized internships through the program’s direct contacts with financial engineers in the industry.
Cornell’s School of Operations Research and Information Engineering (ORIE) has an office, Cornell Financial Engineering Manhattan (CFEM) at 55 Broad Street in Manhattan in the heart of New York’s Financial District. The staff in this office supports the internship program, maintaining relationships with a number of participating financial firms. Contact Victoria Averbukh (vza1@cornell.edu) or Judy Francis (jm334@cornell.edu ) in NYC if you have questions on registration for the program, submission of resumes, and other program logistics.
Who is Eligible
Cornell offers Financial Engineering through both ORIE and the Johnson Graduate School of Management (JGSM). Students enrolled through ORIE’s financial engineering graduate program are eligible for the summer internship, provided they will be students in the semester following the internship.
A third semester, which will make it feasible for students to take advantage of the summer internship, has been added to the Master of Financial Engineering program, and takes place at CFEM in New York in the fall semester. Cornell ORIE undergraduates (and graduates of comparable undergraduate programs) may be able to complete the degree in two semesters and participate in the summer internship.
Internship Program Acceptance Process
Students who are currently enrolled in the Masters of Financial Engineering program (and Cornell students who have accepted admission to the program will be accepted into the internship program once they submit a resume through Engineering Career Services and notify Victoria Averbukh their desire to participate.
Hiring Decisions by Participating Companies
ORIE, through the 55 Broad Street office, actively seeks to build relationships with financial firms that are interested in participating in the internship program and facilitates interviews. Once interviews occur it is up to the firms to select candidates for their summer internship and for the students and firms to agree on terms. Interviews and internship job offers are not guaranteed.
Submission of Resumes
Students interested in participating in the program must submit their resume to career services directly through Cornell’s CornellTrak system (a Cornell version of MonsterTrak). You must specify the Financial Engineering Internship program in your CornellTrak profile. (Only Financial Engineering concentration students are permitted to list the internship program in their profiles). The submitted resumes are used to create a Resume Book that is provided to employers so that they can select students for interviews. Resumes submitted for this purpose should specifically identify the objective of obtaining an internship.
Preparation Support
Cornell Career Services in general, and Engineering Career Services in particular, offer a wide array of networking, resume preparation and interview skills training and other resources to improve your chances of obtaining an internship. See the Career Services web site for a listing of resources and a schedule of workshops. Depending on interest and feasibility, special workshops may be arranged for ORIE MEng students. The first such special workshop will is scheduled for October 10, 2006 as an all-day session during Fall Break.
Ongoing Support and Credit
Once a student is hired for a summer internship, each intern and supervisor is encouraged to have one or two progress meetings during the summer with a Cornell program representative in the Cornell New York Operations Research Program. Please contact Roger Lang (rdl26@cornell.edu ) to arrange for progress meeting discussions. As an option, interns can arrange with a faculty member to submit a final report following the internship, for which one hour of fall term course credit may be granted. This hour does not count towards the minimum number of hours required for the Master of Engineering degree but confirms that the internship is a part of the program curriculum. The final report should be reviewed by the employer to make certain that employment confidentiality is not breached.
Timing and Logistics
An email must be sent to Victoria Averbukh, vza1@cornell.edu. by October 31 of the prior year in order to register for the program for the following summer.
Resumes must be submitted to CornellTrak by October 31 for inclusion in the resume book that the program will distribute on paper and electronically to participating companies. After this date companies will be encouraged to check the online postings for newly submitted resumes.
Once participating firms have reviewed the resumes we will put them in direct contact with the students they want to meet.
Students are responsible for arranging their interview schedules and making their own travel and hotel arrangements to NYC. Once in NYC, they may use the Cornell Financial Engineering Manhattan offices as a base as well as for limited administrative support.
Contact Information
Dr. Kathryn Caggiano, Associate Director for the Master of Engineering program, kec4@cornell.edu, 216 Rhodes Hall, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853.
For registration, resume submission questions and logistics questions related to NYC please contact Victoria Averbukh, Director of Cornell Financial Engineering Manhattan, vza1@cornell.edu, 212.363.2915.