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An internshipship is an opportunity to work in a field that interests you, gain valuable work experience, enhance your college resume, and possibly even earn some extra money.

While internships are more commonly available to college students, it may be possible to get an internship when you’re still in high school.

Read on to learn more about high school internships, including how they work, their pros and cons, and how to find one.

What Is the Purpose of an Internship?

An internship is a temporary position that’s often related to a student’s academic field of study or career interests. It offers students a chance to apply lessons learned in the classroom in a professional setting, while also developing additional skills. Internships also give students an opportunity to make connections in their field of interest and determine if they want to pursue further study and a career in that area. Internships also give employers the opportunity to discover and develop future talent.

💡 Quick Tip: Some lenders help you pay down your student loans sooner with reward points you earn along the way.

The Duties of an Intern

The duties of an intern vary from job to job. For example, those interning at a doctor’s office might shadow medical professionals and take notes on patient visits. Those interning at a marketing firm might sit in on marketing meetings and assist in any communication needs.

An internship experience can be somewhat similar to an entry-level employee position. However, there is typically an educational component. The point is to learn more about the career path, not just get coffee or file the office mail (though you may be asked to do this, too).

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Pros and Cons of High School Internships

There are plenty of pros when it comes to getting internship experiences in high school. For one, an internship allows you to learn about a particular career path without having to commit to a lifelong job.

Learning about a path early on could help you determine whether you want to go to college (rather than directly enter the working world) and help you decide what you’d like to study in school.

Another pro of completing an internship in high school is gaining new experiences and skills. An internship allows you to learn from professionals and add relevant skills to your resume. This can give you a leg up in applying for jobs in the future.

And, of course, all this experience and new learning make for excellent items to add to any potential college applications.
A potential downside to seeking an internship in high school is that they can be hard to find. In addition, the position may not be paid, and might be time-consuming, taking time away from other obligations like homework, studying for SATs, and applying to college.)

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Finding the Right Internship

Finding the perfect internship is a wholly personal experience. A good first step is to consider your interests in both the near and far term. By thinking about career paths you might be interested in, you might identify internship opportunities around you.

However, not every young person knows, or believes they know, exactly what they want to do in the future. But you may have a general interest. For example, if your favorite class is English, an internship at a local newspaper may make sense. If you’re interested in nature, an internship with a local parks and recreation group may make a good fit.

If you’re a high schooler, make a shortlist of interests and sit down with a parent or guardian to identify careers that may fit within these bounds.

Next, it’s time to identify a few companies you might be interested in interning with. Search around for companies near you that may be taking interns. From there, check out career pages on the individual companies to see if they have internship listings. If they don’t, try emailing the company to get in touch with the human resource (HR) department to see what may be available.

One quick tip: While researching and reaching out about internships, make sure to stay realistic about the time commitment. If an internship takes place during the school year, you may only be available in afternoons. Ensure the hiring manager knows the hours you’re available before committing to any long-term work.

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Resources to Find Internships in High School

While there isn’t any centralized listing location for internships for high school students, there are still plenty of places to find information on opportunities.

Schools: You can reach out to school resources like guidance counselors, principals, and individual teachers who may know of companies worth looking into.

Individual companies: Again, seek out information from company websites and reach out to human resource departments to see what may be available.

Job search websites: Check out job search websites, such as Linkedin and Indeed, and search for “Internships in [specific field here].” Make sure to search by location to ensure the internship is nearby.

Friends and family: This is the simplest tip — just ask around. Friends and family members are the ultimate social and work network. Make it known you’re looking for an internship and ask people for their advice on just where to look.

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Questions to Ask Before Accepting an Internship

After figuring out your interests, asking your network, and finding an internship opportunity, you may think the work is done. However, there are still a few more questions to ask.

Before accepting an internship offer, make sure to ask about the full details. What are the hours? What can you expect to learn while on the job? What are the specific job duties and how will you be evaluated along the way? Will there be opportunities for mentorship? And finally, one of the most important questions: Is the internship paid?

💡 Quick Tip: It’s a good idea to understand the pros and cons of private student loans and federal student loans before committing to them.

Paid vs. Unpaid Internships

Scoring a paid internship isn’t a guarantee, but it’s not a completely far-fetched idea either. If a paid internship isn’t available, you can always ask about an exchange for class credit. Unpaid internships are a hotly contested issue so just make sure to do whatever feels right and comfortable for your situation.

Also keep in mind that even a paid internship likely won’t pay enough to make a major dent in your college expenses (though it can help).

If you’re concerned about how you and your family will pay for the cost of tuition, a good first step is to fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) with your family. This will let you know if you are eligible for financial aid, including grants, scholarships, work-study, and federal student loans. If those do not cover your costs, you may also consider private student loans.

Private student loans are available through private lenders, including banks, credit unions, and online lenders. Rates and terms vary, depending on the lender. Generally, borrowers (or cosigners) who have strong credit qualify for the lowest rates.

Keep in mind, though, that private loans may not offer the borrower protections — like income-based repayment plans and deferment or forbearance — that automatically come with federal student loans.

If you’ve exhausted all federal student aid options, no-fee private student loans from SoFi can help you pay for school. The online application process is easy, and you can see rates and terms in just minutes. Repayment plans are flexible, so you can find an option that works for your financial plan and budget.

External Websites: The information and analysis provided through hyperlinks to third-party websites, while believed to be accurate, cannot be guaranteed by SoFi. Links are provided for informational purposes and should not be viewed as an endorsement.

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Hedging is a type of investment strategy that seeks to limit risk exposure in different parts of your portfolio. Essentially hedging involves taking a position with one investment to offset the risk of loss in another investment.

Hedging methods vary widely depending on what the investor views as the main risks they face. Common hedges include derivatives like options and futures contracts, or investments in commodities like gold or oil, or cryptocurrencies, or fixed-income investments like Treasury bonds.

What Is Hedging?

You can define hedging as an investment that’s made to reduce the risks associated with another investment.

Most often, investors will hedge to protect themselves in the event that their investments go down in value and limit potential losses. While there are many ways to hedge, many investors go about hedging with options, purchasing securities that move in the opposite direction of the main investment.

Another common hedge is an investment whose price movements historically do not correlate to the main investment.

For investors, protecting a portfolio against downside risk can be as important as generating returns.


💡 Quick Tip: All investments come with some degree of risk — and some are riskier than others. Before investing online, decide on your investment goals and how much risk you want to take.

How Does Hedging Work?

In many ways, hedging investments work like an insurance policy. A homeowner may purchase insurance to protect their home from fire or other potential risks. That insurance policy costs money, which is an investment of sorts. So if there’s a fire, that insurance may protect the homeowner from greater losses.

Hedging is like that insurance policy. Investors can’t protect against all risks. But with the proper hedges in place — the right insurance policy — they can protect their holdings from certain dangers. But, like insurance, those hedges cost money to make.

Hedging may also reduce an investor’s exposure to the upside of the other elements of their portfolio.

Pros & Cons of Hedging

In addition to investors, companies that operate with heavy exposure to the prices of certain commodities like oil, or whose business model only works in stable interest-rate environments, also use hedges to protect their business.

To understand the pros and cons of hedging, consider an airline, whose fuel costs impact the company’s profitability. The airline may have a trading desk whose sole job is to buy and sell options and futures contracts related to crude oil, as a way of protecting the company against the shock of a sudden upturn in oil prices.

The first pro of hedging for the airline is that those financial derivative instruments allow it to project its fuel costs with some degree of certainty at least a few months into the future.

The other pro of hedging comes when the price of oil skyrockets for whatever reason. In that case, the airline knows it can buy oil at the previously predetermined price in the oil futures contracts it owns.

The con of hedging would be the constant ongoing expense of maintaining it. The airline has to pay for the oil futures contracts, even if it never exercises them. Futures contracts expire on a regular basis, requiring the company to continue buying them. And if fuel costs don’t go up, then it’s likely that the futures contracts the airline buys will be worthless when they expire.

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The company also has to devote personnel to maintaining the portfolio of its hedges, to buy and sell the derivatives, and to periodically test the hedge to make sure it continues to protect the company as the markets shift. For the airline that represents money and talent that is diverted away from its core business.

The analogy for investors is clear. While hedges can protect an investment plan, they also come with a cost in time and money. And it’s up to each investor to determine whether the cost of a hedge is worth the protection it offers.


💡 Quick Tip: Options can be a cost-efficient way to place certain trades, because you typically purchase options contracts, not the underlying security. That said, options trading can be risky, and best done by those who are not entirely new to investing.

Hedging Examples and Strategies

There are several ways that investors can use hedging to protect their portfolios.

Diversification

Portfolio diversification is probably the best known and most widely used risk management strategy. It relies on a broad mix of investments within a portfolio to help protect the portfolio from facing too large of a loss if one investment loses value.

A diversified portfolio will hold several distinct asset types to reduce its exposure to any single investment risk. For example, investors may balance out the risk of a stock holdings with bond securities, since bonds tend to perform better in markets where stocks struggle.

Spread Hedging

Spread hedging is a risk-management strategy employed by options traders. In this strategy, a trader will buy options with two separate strike prices to earn a small return and protect themselves against price movements in the security that underlies the options. In a bull put spread, for example, a trader might purchase one long put with a lower strike price and one short put with a high strike price.

Forward Hedge

Forward contracts are financial derivatives used mostly by businesses to protect themselves from changes in the value of a currency. For the purchaser, the contract effectively fixes the rate of exchange between two currencies for a period of time. The airline example discussed above is a forward hedge.

Delta Hedging

Delta hedging is a strategy used by options traders to reduce the directional risk of price movements in the security underlying the options contracts. In the strategy, the trader buys or sells options to offset investment risks and reach a delta neutral state, in which the investment is protected regardless of which way the asset price moves.

Tail Risk Hedging

Tail risk hedging refers to an array of strategies whose goal is to protect against extreme shifts in the markets. The strategies involve a close study of the major risk factors faced by a portfolio, followed by a search for the least expensive investments to protect against the most extreme of those risks.

For example, an investor overweight U.S. equities might purchase derivatives based on the Volatility Index, which tends to negatively correlate to the S&P 500 Index.

Binary Options Hedging Strategy

In a binary options hedging strategy, the investor buys both a put and a call on the same underlying security, each with a strike price that makes it possible for both options to be in the money at the same time. Binary options only guarantee a payout if a predetermined event occurs.

Forex Hedging

A forex hedge refers to any transaction made to protect an investment from changes in currency values. As a hedge, they may be used by investors, traders and businesses. For example, since GBP/USD and EUR/USD typically have a positive correlation, you could hedge a long position in GBP/USD with a short position in EUR/USD.

Another example of forex hedging is purchasing a currency-hedged ETF. Doing so gives investors the protection of a forex hedge against the investments within their ETFs, without having to actually purchase the hedge on their own.

Recommended: What Is Forex Trading?

Hedging for Hyperinflation

Inflation hedges are those investments that have outperformed the market when inflation is a major factor in the economy. While every inflationary period is different, with other global, market and macroeconomic factors in play, investors have historically found shelter — and even growth — during inflation by investing in certain assets.

Some investments that have a reputation as inflation hedges include precious metals such as gold, and commodities like oil, corn, beef, and natural gas. Other inflation hedges include REITS and real estate income.

Dollar-Cost Averaging

Some investors view dollar-cost averaging, which involves investing a set amount of money at preset intervals regardless of market performance, as a way to hedge against market volatility. That’s because dollar-cost averaging, by definition, means that you’re buying investments when they’re both high and low — and you don’t have to worry about trying to time the market.

Is Hedging Viable for Retail Investors?

Yes. While some hedging involves complicated options strategies, you can also hedge your portfolio by simply making sure that you have diversified holdings. If you’re investing to protect against certain risks, such as inflation or interest rate increases, that’s also an example of hedging.

The Takeaway

Hedges are investments, often derivatives, that help protect investors from risk. Hedging is a common strategy to use certain types of securities to offset the risk of loss from another security.

However, it’s possible to hedge some investments without investing in derivatives. Building a diversified portfolio of stocks and bonds, for example, or investing in real estate to protect against inflation risk are also examples of hedging.

Ready to invest in your goals? It’s easy to get started when you open an investment account with SoFi Invest. You can invest in stocks, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), mutual funds, alternative funds, and more. SoFi doesn’t charge commissions, but other fees apply (full fee disclosure here).

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