Darden First Year Internships Span Industries, Functions and Locations Around the World

As rising University of Virginia Darden School of Business Second Years conclude their MBA internships and prepare to return to Grounds, the past 10 weeks offered these students endless growth opportunities in pursuit of their professional purpose — presentations of final projects, connections with new Darden alumni and, in many cases, job offers.

Nearly 60 percent will receive a full-time offer from their internship companies, according to the past three years of employment outcome data from Darden’s Career Development Center.

This summer, and for the second in a row, 100 percent of Darden’s full-time MBA students received an internship, and students entered roles in all major MBA industries. Preliminary data shows that interns received, on average, monthly internship compensation of $9,420 — up from $7,693 for students’ monthly internship salaries in 2018.

The top industries recruiting First Year talent were consulting (26 percent), financial services (25 percent) and technology (23 percent). Looking at internship job functions regardless of industry, consulting (27 percent) and financial services (19 percent) landed in the top two, with general management (17 percent) and marketing (15 percent) functions closely following.

A total of 145 companies hired interns from Darden’s Class of 2020 to spend their summers in 67 U.S. cities in 25 different states, and in 11 countries around the world. The five U.S. locations where the most interns worked were New York City; Boston; Washington, D.C.; Seattle; and — tied for fifth — Austin, Texas, and Atlanta. The top international locations for Darden MBA interns were Shanghai and Sao Paulo, with Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Jerusalem; Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam; Mexico City; Buenos Aires, Argentina; Beijing; Hong Kong; Johannesburg; Tokyo; and Jakarta, Indonesia each welcoming one Darden intern.

Internships in Focus: Japanese E-commerce Giant Rakuten, Consulting Giant BCG, Barclays Investment Banking

Deepta Yaduvanshi (Class of 2020)

Deepta Yaduvanshi (Class of 2020) spent her summer in Tokyo interning with Rakuten, a Japanese e-commerce company ranked among the world’s Top 20 internet companies by yearly sales. Yaduvanshi focused on Rakuten’s $300 million partnership with the National Basketball Association and how to monetize this sponsorship asset across the company’s ecosystem, with more than 1.5 billion global members.

“This internship has been one of the most unique, refreshing and creative experiences in my life,” Yaduvanshi said. “Darden equipped me to succeed in a foreign country working with people from all over the world. A huge help was the Japan Darden Worldwide Course in May, where I learnt a lot about the corporate culture, business practices and the office environment in Japan from locals and expats.”

Vin Paruchuri (Class of 2020)

Vin Paruchuri (Class of 2020) interned with Boston Consulting Group in Boston, working with the consulting firm’s private equity practice. He described the experience as “amazing” thanks to how well his work preferences aligned with his team’s.

“We placed a big focus on prioritizing workstreams and operating efficiently to meet tight deadlines, which created a fast-paced environment but also enabled great work-life balance,” Paruchi said. “I really learned how to identify and prioritize the right tasks, and more importantly also de-prioritize the right ones.”

Ann-Catherine Begley (Class of 2020)

Ann-Catherine Begley (Class of 2020) interned at Barclays in New York City on the investment bank’s natural resources group, which covers oil, gas, water management and refineries, among others. She enjoyed learning about the energy supply chain and landscape, and found it exciting to understand the complex processes that power the energy the world consumes. Begley credits the power of the Darden network and case curriculum as critical to her success this summer.

“My teammates were brilliant, and the Darden network is so supportive. I was fortunate to work at a firm with lots of Darden alumni, and they were all so supportive of my professional journey,” Begley said. “In investment banking, and in many careers, you have to be able to synthesize large amounts of information really quickly and then explain it to others. It’s not easy to do.”

After her internship, Begley believes she will begin her Second Year better prepared to learn quickly and defend her decisions with thoughtful analysis.

“During my internship, I had to very quickly become an expert in refining, even though I had never touched the energy industry. Without Darden’s fast-paced case method teaching, I’m not sure I would have been as successful.”

Yaduvanshi, Paruchi, Begley and their rising Second Year classmates will begin the next phase of their Darden journeys soon, with the 2019–20 academic year kicking off on Monday, 19 August.