Can anyone comment on Wake Forest's MSA internship option?
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18 Apr 2019, 17:54
Mainly looking for someone who has done the MSA at Wake Forest or someone who might know how necessary it is?
"Paid Internship Option
A major benefit of the Wake Forest Masters in Accounting program is the professional internship — a nine-week paid position that provides real-world experience for those students in our three-semester program. Internships are offered in the spring semester, during the busy tax season, and are great for those who enter the MSA program without previous internship experience, or those who want to gain additional experience with a company prior to accepting a full-time offer. The MSA program has consistently placed 100% of students in rewarding internships, with most receiving multiple offers. Almost all of our students participating in this option receive full-time job offers from their internship experiences, as well as three hours of course credit."
Obviously all fine and dandy, but the option of taking this as a third semester adds ~26,000 dollars to your bill. They obviously pitch it as something heavily recommended (especially if you're doing the Financial Transactions Services track they have). However, a lot of programs don't have an option for an internship like this and plenty other Master's programs somehow get heavy and expected recruiting by Big4 anyway. This leads me to believe that it's absolutely unnecessary to getting you a job.
Is there any actual benefit to taking this option apart from experience? It's paid but virtually all the money would go towards housing (10-12k average compensation), and I would personally get -7500 off due to a scholarship. Depending on where the internship is you're still going to be in the red for 10-15k just to do it.
Can anyone comment on this?