Maths in Cambridge - 2nd year internships

[AcrylicMantaRay]

Hello everyone. My nephew is in his second year of maths in Cambridge and has applied for dozens and dozens of internships in London and has been rejected by every single one of them. I can tell this is affecting him massively. I don't know anything about this world, I am not from the UK, I was educated in a different country, his mum (my sister) died of cancer 3 years ago and he did not have a father. I just really want to support him but not just emotionally, I would like to be able to offer some practical advice. Is there anything he could be doing that maybe has hasn't thought of?

I am at a loss and I don't even know, apart from this type of internships in trading companies, what else can a person do with a maths degree? Sorry if this sounds like such a stupid question, I genuinely don't know.

Are there other types of companies that would be interested in him that maybe he hasn't thought about? Thank you if anyone is able to offer me some direction and advice.

There will be loads of Cambridge internship opportunities, and the Uni should have loads of resources to help him find them. Consulting companies such as Cambridge Consultants, policy/thinktank type companies, med tech and engineering/software development companies would all be interested in maths graduates!

Can Cambridge UGs RA at their uni?

Hello thank you. Sorry @econssjdn, what does RA mean?

Hi, OP -

STEM academic here.

I am so sorry for the loss of your sister and your nephew’s mum. That surely made him vulnerable already.

Maths is a great degree for employability but it doesn’t have an obvious career path like Medicine or Engineering. Has your DN connected to the Careers Service at Cambridge, both in terns of internships and, more importantly, post graduation plans? It is definitely time to start working with them on the latter.

Your whole family suffered a massive blow. Your DN did extraordinarily well to get to Cambridge - that’s true of anyone, doubly so in his circumstances. But I wonder whether he has been doing the things that the ultra competitive internships rate? Employment, volunteering, involvement in university life etc? How good, in both content and form, is his CV? Would the financial sector even suit him? These are things the Careers Service can help him with.

The disadvantage of the flexibility offered by Maths does mean that after Y2 of uni, Economics students on one side and Computer Science students on the other may have more explicit skills to offer employers. We see a variance acrossSTEM fields at my uni.

If he isn’t sure what he might like to do, I recommend the old classic What Colour is My Parachute? If he might be depressed or anxious, quite understandably, please encourage him to seek help for his MH sooner rather than later.

He is a Cambridge Maths student. He has something tremendous to offer an employer, but a super competitive internship in London this year may not be on the cards. Doing something is very good for his CV. Careers Service, pronto. Hopefully they have a Maths Specialist.

Also the School of Maths and DN’s College should provide networking opportunities. Even if he isn’t the most social by nature, he needs to plug in.

If DN is already taking good advantage of these networking opportunities, I apologise. If he hates the idea, he needs to figure out what he can do comfortably - again, pronto.

Many of the interviews for good jobs in STEM will assess comfort working in groups. It can be hard on introverts; they need to start putting themselves out there - baby steps - as undergraduates.

PS Very best wishes to you both

The main issue is it is a numbers game. My son applied to around 70 to get 2 offers. Many of them recruit uni blind so being at Cambridge will not count for anything unless he can showcase what skills he has to offer.

Often students don't tailor their applications to the job specification. It is better to write to address this. This job appeals because xyz. The skills needed are xyzz. I am a suitable candidate because I can demonstrate these skills such as when I did xyzzz.

I am sure he will get there in the end and many don't pick up internships and just have to some paid work. This will give soft skills for later internship or graduate job offers. But yes Cambridge has a great careers service and he should make an appointment for some advice.

My older son went the research assistant route at end of Y2 maths at Oxford - he’d already decided he didn’t really want industry or finance so didn’t even attempt a highly paid internship. But he did identify a professor at Oxford who was specialising in an area my son likes, and basically chased him around campus until he agreed to do a research project with my son in the long vac. It felt like my son had to be completely naked about his desire to do the project and be prepared to come up with answers to all the bureaucratic hurdles and basically make it as easy as possible for the professor to say ‘oh alright then’. But it worked. There are lots of areas of maths that finance firms really value (if that’s what your nephew is interested in) - quant analysis stuff, probability. This sort of research project could add good value to his CV in the long run. Good luck to him, sounds like he’s had a tough time of it.

I echo a lot of this. I have a fair amount of experience interviewing maths grads for internships.

It is just extremely competitive and a Cambridge maths degree (remember that as employers we see people coming from Imperial, Warwick, the many excellent Paris institutes, ETH, and beyond) is not the golden ticket people think it is. It probably helps until the interview stage, and then after that you can only rely on your performance on the day. It is a skill that takes practice.

I find often with the Cam grads (over Warwick and Imperial) that whilst they can recite some definition to me very concisely and accurately, asking them WHY we eg use a Bessel correction in such and such case is where they fall down. Unfortunately I’m looking for someone I know that I can put in front of a trader and get them to explain a concept at an appropriate level when shit hits the fan, not just a walking book of formulae. I’m also looking for someone who doesn’t just spin their wheels when faced with a problem they haven’t seen before.

In short: interviewing is a skill and it is extremely competitive out there. The only way to get better is to practise (go to more interviews and get feedback).

Research assistant. I know UGs at LSE have at times been paid to help a professor with research. Usually PT during term time, but I've heard it being done over summer as well