Is Brown University or Boston University better for finding internships?

Boston University offers the more convenient day-to-day internship setting because it is in Boston, where students can reach employers in health care, biotech, finance, media, nonprofits, government, and startups without leaving the city. Brown offers a smaller, more flexible academic environment and strong national name recognition, but Providence has a less concentrated local employer market. Both schools provide career advising, job and internship platforms, alumni connections, and funding or support for experiential learning.

At BU, the practical advantage is proximity plus scale. Students can build internships into the academic year, not just summers, and many programs have established relationships with Boston-area organizations. BU’s career services and school-based offices can be especially useful for fields with structured recruiting, while the city makes informational interviews, part-time roles, and semester internships more accessible.

Brown’s Open Curriculum can be an important advantage for a student who wants to pursue an internship alongside an individualized combination of courses. Brown’s alumni community and faculty connections can be valuable, particularly for research, public service, policy, entrepreneurship, the arts, and nationally competitive opportunities. Students can also pursue Boston internships, though the travel distance makes a regular in-person role less effortless than it is for BU students. Brown students may need to be more self-directed in translating that flexibility into a concrete internship plan.