USC vs Fordham for internships: which school gives better access to internship opportunities?

USC usually gives broader undergraduate internship access overall, especially because its alumni network is unusually active, many majors are tightly connected to Los Angeles industries, and the university puts a lot of energy into career programming tied to internships. For fields like film, media, entertainment, communications, business, engineering, and tech-adjacent work, USC’s location and school-specific connections tend to create a very deep pipeline. It is one of those places where the school name, alumni responsiveness, and industry proximity often reinforce each other in a noticeable way.

USC’s biggest advantage is how embedded certain programs are in local industries. The School of Cinematic Arts, Annenberg, Marshall, Viterbi, and related programs benefit from direct connections to companies and organizations in LA, where internships during the academic year are common because students can physically get there without major travel. That matters because access is not just about prestige, but about being able to build experience steadily across multiple semesters.

Fordham’s strongest case is New York itself. If you want finance, media, publishing, nonprofits, politics, arts administration, or certain corporate internships, being in NYC is a serious asset, and Fordham students can absolutely take advantage of that. The advantage is that the city has an enormous volume of opportunities, but the tradeoff is that students are competing in a denser market that includes many nearby colleges, so the school-driven pipeline can feel less concentrated than USC’s in some fields.

On support, USC tends to have more visible, school-connected internship infrastructure across majors, with alumni outreach and career offices that are especially useful for undergrads trying to get their first role. Fordham provides access and support too, but a lot of the hustle can feel more student-driven through the city itself rather than through a single dominant campus-to-industry network.

The exception is if your goals are very specifically New York-centered, especially in sectors where being in Manhattan during the semester matters more than being plugged into a particular university network. In that case, Fordham can be extremely practical because proximity becomes the main tool.