“The only source of Knowledge is experience “– Albert Einstein
Post MBA 1
st year term-end exams we students of DOMS, IIT Madras were gearing up for the next big task which was summer internship. Amidst all those curious souls was me, thinking about the opportunities the internship could have in store for me. Being from a technical work experience background I always had seen people from non-technical job roles in my workplace and had some views about them but this was my first stint on being one of them.
I was selected for Internship at Brillio Technologies - a US based IT products and services firm which in India operates from Bangalore. I completed end term exams on 6
th May 2017 and went straight to Bangalore the same day as internship began on 8
th May 2017 in order to take care of logistics. I am writing this article from the perspective of the reader expecting one could gain some insights on summer internship via my experiences, hence splitting the article into some header points in the chronology of my journey at Brillio.
Search accommodation nearby your company
One of the major recommendations I would make to future summer interns is to search for an accommodation as close as the company location as possible. This would save you lot of travelling time which can be utilised for productive activities which I will elaborate in later points.
My PG was around 500M away from my office location.
Create a plan
Post my induction at the company; I met my project mentor and guide for the project discussion. I was assigned a project on a GST product that Brillio is launching. Not being a finance student, I had no idea about GST other than little basic information. I had 7 weeks at hand and a towering project that was business critical from the perspective of product success in coming future. The best thing that I did was creating a plan on a week-week basis for the project as to the task that I need to do and information I need to assimilate for the final report.
It is said that
“If you fail to plan, you plan to fail “. In mere 7 weeks, it would be difficult to achieve the project objectives without a roadmap. I would suggest you always begin with one.
Constant Review
This was by far my biggest learning from the internship. Initially, whatever content prepared, I instantly approached my guide for his views (weekly twice). More often than not, I discovered that the same was not much value adding from a project perspective. After those instances whenever I was ready with some content & before approaching the guide, I would always ask myself certain questions
1.Is this content in alignment to the project objectives? 2. Is this information in sync with previous content I prepared for the project? 3. Will this be of any value adding to project as a whole? The result of this activity was that the content was much appreciated by the guide. Picking up from point 1, I took up this self-review time at the end of each day regularly post my normal working hours as I had extra time on hand.
The key to quality material is reviewing your content from different perspectives. Always do a self-review with few questions once you finalise content for the review by guide/mentor.
Focus on Design of PPT and final presentation
The key to a good project completion is showcasing your research material in an eloquent manner. Create a final presentation design that best matches the theme of your project.
From the beginning, I prepared draft versions of ppt that only had content. What I had in hand was a content ready ppt and design was the only thing left as per my chalked out plan.
Finally practice the delivery of presentation content once or twice to gain that extra boost of confidence.
Devote some time to a hobby
Summer Internship presents an excellent opportunity for us to pursue a hobby that we cannot attain because of rigorous college time tables and assignment deadlines. I was thinking on to start daily jogging as prep up to participate in a marathon late December this year in my hometown. Picking up from point 1 again, I started jogging for a small amount of time daily post office hours. This indirectly helped me by providing a stress buster thereby aiding in my preparation to the marathon.
Although I chose the place of accommodation just on basis of my comfort of the location, it provided me with a lot of additional advantages in terms of buffer time for such activities among others that I realise only now.
Form Relationship and bonds
Finally, these 8 weeks are not only an experience on professional front but at a personal level too. I had a great time in observing the side of an organisation that I never got a chance in my previous stint at work before MBA. Interacting with people across departments for my project always gave me new insights which were very instrumental. At the end I think we all will be remembered for the memories we create with people at workplace more than anything else. I found new friends at my workplace with whom I planned hangouts on weekends.
These were all my learning’s at a summer internship. At the end, I am satisfied with myself for the question in my mind I began the internship which was “what opportunities the internship could have in store for me? “ I finally move on with a new perspective on the way ahead and in some way transformed me as stated above during the course of this internship leaving a lot of experiences.