Which is better for internship opportunities, NYU or Berkeley?

The biggest practical tradeoff is location during the school year: NYU puts you directly in Manhattan, where internships in finance, media, fashion, arts, consulting, startups, and nonprofits are unusually accessible during the semester, while Berkeley gives you stronger proximity to the Bay Area tech ecosystem, research labs, and startup scene, but many internships may involve commuting to San Francisco, Oakland, or the Peninsula rather than walking from campus. In practice, NYU often has the edge for part-time in-semester internships because the city is so integrated into student life. Berkeley can be especially powerful for tech, engineering, and startup recruiting, but the experience is a bit less built around “intern while taking classes” in the same seamless way.

For school-year opportunities, NYU is hard to beat. Students can often fit internships into the week more naturally because employers are nearby and the university has long-standing ties to New York industries. If your interests include business, entertainment, journalism, public policy, real estate, luxury, or the arts, NYU’s day-to-day access is a real advantage.

For summer internships, the gap is smaller. Berkeley carries enormous weight with employers, especially in software, engineering, data science, product, research, and some finance and consulting paths. The alumni network is huge, and Bay Area recruiting is very real, but it can be more self-directed and competitive. Berkeley students do very well, though the internship search may depend more on using career fairs, clubs, referrals, and technical recruiting pipelines rather than simply being surrounded by employers in the city.

One more practical point: Berkeley’s size can create incredible opportunity, but also means you may need to be more proactive to access it. NYU can also feel self-driven, but its location does more of the lifting when it comes to finding semester-time roles.

So for internship access in practice, especially during the school year, I’d give NYU the advantage overall. If your main target is tech or startup-oriented work, Berkeley may offer the more valuable ecosystem despite being a little less convenient week to week.