Singapore’s Aspiring Bankers Skip Class to ‘Stack’ Internships

When BNP Paribas SA offered Aloysius Kang a six-month internship, he withdrew from his Singapore university classes in the middle of the semester to take the “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

Kang, who started his stint at the bank in March, has spent two semesters away from school to gain more direct exposure to the finance sector. The 24-year-old accountancy undergraduate, who will likely graduate later than many of his classmates at Singapore Management University, is part of a growing trend of students in the city-state reshaping their tertiary education to accumulate coveted work experience. It even has a name: internship stacking.