Internships - The Journey I chose

There are many versions of Ramayana. In one, it states that Ram agreed to go for Vanwas to understand the life of all the organisms because only after that, he could bring the foretold Ram Rajya, which looked over the peaceful coexistence of every organism.

To bring Ram Rajya in my life, I chose internships at a startup, MNC, and a small company to realize what others are living like, by living amongst them.

I am part of the crowd.

I am pursuing engineering, BTech in IT. I don’t need numbers to prove how big a crowd I am part of; you obviously must have heard huge vague numbers by now.

I realized it when I joined my college, a world on its own, a huge platform for a lot of rats to race. I was one among the rats, a rat who never runs unless there’s a cat behind.

Ironically, the exams in my college were called CATs (Continuous Assessment Test), which made me run. 

Seeing the rats running around me, motivated me.

I saw a few who ran on their own, maybe they saw some cheese hanging around the corner. I wouldn’t know because I never had their sight. 

All I saw while walking and resting were few rats running(few going backward, few getting eaten up by cats as well, but the ones running forward always caught my eye).

But in the second year of my college, I realized that only running for exams wouldn’t get me far, and since I didn’t have the farsightedness to spot cheese hanging far far away, I decided to bring in more cats in my life.

I started getting into clubs and chapters, where you are given some work and are guided/ordered by seniors. There were many clubs and chapters, I chose the ones that were in line with my road, so I got myself into Codechef (a technical chapter to enhance my tech skills) and Radio (to enhance my oratory).

I started taking tough subjects that had projects and labs so that I had to work throughout the semester and not just a week before the exams.

Being chased by so many ferocious cats, got me habituated to running.

And when you start running, when you feel the wind on your face, you develop the want for more.

In the second year itself, I started applying for a lot of internships (around 100-150 because it was tough to get internships being part of the crowd, which included seniors as well).

I once worked on a freelance project that I got from a senior in my club through which I showcased all the companies that I CAN DO IT FOR YOU! 

This helped me score a technical internship in the summer of 18.

But one hunter wasn’t enough since I was accustomed to packs chasing me.

So for that, I joined two more internships, one being an NGO and another which required management and conducting workshops. (Don’t worry, I won’t dig deep into those).

During those two months, I used to go to the NGO office in the morning, work for the management internship during the day, and code at night for the technical internship.

Two months went by quickly because I was running faster than I ever did.

Got back to college, had the normal routine back, classes, labs, clubs and chapters.

Fast forward to the end of the third year.

Most of the people did their one compulsory internship after the 3rd year, and that is why the placement cell of our college invited companies to come over.

But there were very few companies, and they recruited very few, to give you an idea, only 100-150 used to get an internship from a campus of 8,000.

Since I had completed my internship after the 2nd year, I had the luxury of staying at home and preparing for campus placement, which would happen in 4th year.

But me being a run-loving rat gave the interviews and got myself an internship in Pune in an MNC.

I got a chance to taste some cheese !!

Now I was supposed to work and prepare for placements together. Both cats being big ones, helped me break my speed record.

Since there was a chance of getting Pre Placement Offer from that company, I took it up to myself to make the run for that cheese as well.

My routine in Pune was indeed a tough run for me. Since I never liked running alone, I motivated a friend of mine, who was interning with me in that company, and we used to have the same routine. 

We used to wake up around 6 am do a bit of coding and study technical concepts, get ready for office, and even in the office, we did a bit of coding whenever we were free. Get back to the hotel (Yeah, our company treated us really well, a four-star hotel, all meals and commute included) and study again for 3 hours at night. It was tough for maintaining this routine because we stayed in a very posh area, which was the hub for pubs, and we often had to put down the invites from our colleagues to stay back and study.

Fast forward to the end of the internship; I completed three projects, one of which was being done in parallel by a team whom I overtook singlehandedly, so everyone was impressed, and I received a PPO.

I got myself some cheese!!

 

In my college, companies are segregated into categories based on their CTC as Regular, Dream, and Superdream.

My company belonged to the dream category, and who doesn’t like a bigger chunk of cheese?

So, I started preparing for placements in full swing, the base prep that I did during the internship helped a lot. And soon, I got myself a super dream offer as well.

I got myself a bigger chunk of Cheese!!

They all said, now I can rest and enjoy the view of cheese that I would enjoy after six months.

In our college, last semester is reserved for capstone project which is supposed to be a big complex project, but students who are offered an internship from the company, that they are placed in, are exempted from the project and are allowed to do just the internship only.

(My company didn’t offer any internship)

There was this third option that I got to know where one can do an off-campus internship but will have to work on the capstone project as well.

Yes, you guessed it right, the run-loving rat inside me didn’t die after seeing the assured cheese.

To make the chase faster than ever, I chose a startup to do my internship.

Now, I was being chased by a cat bigger than the MNC cat, a cat that had ferocious claws and had erratic chase patterns and the big complex capstone cat.

The startup that I chose didn’t have any systematic working structure. Everyone had a cross-functional role, at any moment in time, you can be asked to switch technologies or even projects depending on the priority: hence a cat with erratic chase patterns.

The Capstone Project that I was working on had to be a complex one to be accepted by my college. Hence most of my free time was consumed in it’s making.

I would not bore you with the details of the workload or the hardships I had to go through while commuting 26 kilometers every day in the traffic-jammed city of Bengaluru inside a public bus. 

( But had to mention it so that you have an idea about the variety of life I have led, from the four-star hotel and air-conditioned cabs to the public bus swamped with people enough to make a nice winter evening into a sweating chamber. )

Hence by the end of my four years, I can proudly say that this rat can run and survive in any condition that he has to be in. 

 I am planning to make another blog on “What I have learned through internships and how to get them”, which will depend on the comments down here, so lemme know:)

 Also, do share the experiences you had during your college and what kept you going down in the comments.