Boston University vs Northwestern for internship opportunities: which is better?

For internship opportunities alone, Boston University usually gives students the more immediate day-to-day access during the school year, while Northwestern often offers a stronger pipeline for students targeting highly selective employers and well-developed alumni recruiting. BU is embedded in Boston, so internships in healthcare, biotech, hospitals, startups, media, nonprofits, and finance are unusually accessible without needing to leave campus life behind. Northwestern is in Evanston, just outside Chicago, so students absolutely do intern during the year, but it often takes more planning around commuting or spending concentrated time in Chicago.

BU tends to fit the student who wants constant proximity to opportunities and expects to intern early and often. Boston is one of the easiest college cities for part-time academic-year internships, especially if you are interested in fields tied to the city’s core industries like public health, biomedical research, consulting, education, and communications. BU’s setting makes networking, informational interviews, and semester internships feel practical rather than occasional.

Northwestern fits the student who cares not just about access, but also about structured recruiting into nationally prominent roles. It has especially strong pull in consulting, finance, journalism, engineering, tech-adjacent roles, and pre-professional fields where employer relationships and alumni networks matter a lot. Chicago is a major internship market, and Northwestern students benefit from that, but the experience can feel a bit more centered on deliberate recruiting cycles than on casually picking up opportunities nearby.

If your priority is maximizing the number of realistic in-semester internships, BU has an edge because the city is right there and the school is deeply woven into it. If your priority is landing brand-name internships through a very strong network and employer perception, Northwestern may have the advantage.