Many Wofford students decide to work internships during their summer breaks, and for Avery Fields ‘26, getting an internship for the summer of 2025 was a given.
A finance and Chinese double major, Fields wanted an internship that could give her more direction as to what she might want to do after graduation.
While looking at internships, she found a commercial banking summer internship with JP Morgan Chase out of their Houston offices. JP Morgan Chase’s summer internships are notoriously difficult to get, and Fields wasn’t expecting much out of it because of this.
However, she kept making it to the next round of interviews for the internship, and was eventually offered the position.
“It’ll be fun to explore a new city and exciting to have a little more direction of where I’m going to go with the finance major, and as I was researching the role about what commercial banking was, I was getting more interested in it,” Fields said.
The internship is in middle market banking and specialized industries, a subset of commercial banking that helps provide commercial banking services to organizations and corporations that have $20 million to $500 million of annual revenue.
Fields’ hopes that this internship will help give her more direction in what she wants to do for her career after graduating from Wofford. She also hopes that this internship could lead to a return offer from JP Morgan Chase for a job after her graduation in 2026.
When looking at JP Morgan Chase’s internships on the whole, its acceptance rate for summer 2024 internships was under 1%, so Fields’ ability to get this internship is an outstanding achievement.
Helping her to hone her skills when applying to internships, Fields highlighted the opportunities that the career center has created for students during her time at Wofford.
“I had been going to career center stuff since I came to Wofford, so I had a lot of skills going into the application process. Every time the career center has a meet and greet, it’s just good practice to go meet with an employer or go on these career treks and get exposed to professional environments,” Fields said.
The career center offers students many resources, including help with creating resumes and choosing majors, supporting students as they apply to jobs and internships, and connecting students and alumni.
The career center also offers Handshake to students, a website where companies that have been approved by the college can post internships and job opportunities for students to apply to.
Fields emphasized the role that her professors have played in helping with the process of applying to internships, including Dr. Ezgi Akpinar Ferrand, her marketing research professor.
“As part of the internship application you had to do a case study, and it was super helpful to go to Dr. Ferrand as my marketing research professor for the marketing research case study,” Fields said.
JP Morgan Chase offered Fields a verbal offer before a written offer, which surprised her as well as excited her. She also felt the support of her friends and peers who were excited for her and proud of her.
When looking back at her experience applying to the internship, Fields had some words of wisdom for other students who are applying to internships or jobs.
“Apply for anything, whether you think you’re overqualified, underqualified for it, because something will stick. I almost didn’t apply for this because I thought I wouldn’t get it, so don’t be the person to tell yourself no,” Fields said.
