Software Development Internship VS Industrial Placement

Question

In brief:
would you say a year long internship is better than a summer internship in software development in terms of career prospects?

In detail:
I'm in the UK studying the penultimate year of my Computer Science degree. I've recently been offered a summer internship at a large investment bank where I will get to work in the codebase of a very complex real time trading floor software system.

I have also been offered a year long placement (industrial placement) working for one of th worlds largest "provider of software solutions".

In terms of career progression do you think I should go for a whole year in industry and take my final year at University a year later than planned or should I take the 3 month summer internship and take the final year of University as planned?

I want to go into software engineering.

Answer 1

Oh yeah, I can't do both, it's one or the other. (or none).

Answer 2

Which place would you like to work when you graduate? Choose that one as, if you do well, the likelihood of receiving a job offer there is much higher.

Answer 3

If you want to work in a specific industry (but not specifically software), then look for a place in that industry.

If you want to excel at producing software, then go to a company that makes software for a living, rather than (say) financial products.

It's a matter of focus. A company that doesn't have software as its primary deliverable will always treat it as more like an IT function, and there's only so far that you can go.