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Wall Street internships are tough, but it is possible to survive.

Wall Street internship season is just around the corner.

Over the coming weeks, thousands of aspiring young bankers and traders will flock to New York City and other financial hubs to get a taste of life on the Street.

Of course, these internships can be intimidating. You've heard the horror stories about the 100-hour workweeks. The grunt work. The tight deadlines.

But it is possible to survive your Wall Street internship and, according to one former Goldman Sachs intern, even enjoy it.

The Goldman intern, who will be returning to the bank this summer as a full-time analyst, told us how he did it.

Here's his advice:

1. Ask for work early in the day.

This might sound counterintuitive, but interns often have downtime during the day. The reason their work hours can run so long through the week is that work can emerge late at night, and it often has a tight deadline.

Every intern's nightmare is having a last-minute assignment dropped on his or her desk at 9 or 10 p.m. The easiest way to avoid this, the Goldman Sachs intern said, is to ask for as much work as possible early on in the day.

If you're already staffed on a ton of projects, your analyst or associate is more likely to turn to somebody else who is a bit less busy than you at the end of the day.

2. Always get through your 'Excel work' first.

In an HR-driven attempt to improve the internship experience, many top Wall Street banks have set rules on how many hours interns can physically spend in the office. Bank of America, for example, does not expect interns to work between midnight and 9 a.m., while Goldman Sachs interns must swipe out and leave the building by midnight and not return until 7 a.m.

Sometimes interns still have work to do, even if they can't be in the building, so here's the hack: If you can't finish all your work by the time you must leave, then at least finish everything you need to do on Excel.

It's much easier to touch up a PowerPoint presentation from your laptop at home than to try to work in complicated spreadsheets on detailed models.

Another tip: Buy yourself a PC and a couple of screens to use at home.

(Toru Hanai/Reuters)
Your first internship on Wall Street might leave you feeling a bit like this.

3. Goldman Sachs has entire teams dedicated to making your life easier. Use them!

Most banks have some strategic services for analysts, but Goldman's team is especially elaborate.

The intern told us it was "probably the most impressive thing I've ever seen" and was designed "to make analyst life easier."