A Botanist entered into the world of finance with apprehensions and doubts of survival. The first year of MBA feels like learning the skill of juggling. My first year was about constantly stepping out of the comfort zone and balancing academics, Committee work and definitely your personal space. I may have not realized it at that point of time, but all this was preparing me for my journey of internship at Kotak Mahindra Bank as a credit analyst intern.
My First Trimester in NMIMS Bangalore was about coming back home at 8 or 9 in the night. The feeling of stepping out of college with the sun still in sky was a rare feeling. At that time, I hated it but it was preparing me to sit for long hours during my internship as it’s a completely different skill for which you have to train yourself. After attending long lectures one has to sit for the guest lectures where you sit and think what’s the point of having them. But I must tell you that as a fresher it is an opportunity for you to peep inside the window of the Corporate world. You are actually receiving information about which you can boast about during your interviews. In NMIMS Bangalore, we had competitions like Top Talent and Mentorship Programmes. Top Talent was like a mock GD and Interview conducted by seniors and faculties that help you in understanding where you stand in your batch and gives the direction to prepare. Senior batch students were assigned as our mentors who helped us throughout by clearing our doubts. All this was adding value for my Kotak Journey.
My 8 weeks in Kotak Mahindra Bank were full of ups and downs but most importantly it was about learning. As a credit analyst intern in Business Loan Department, I sat with the Credit analyst team of 6 members. But I was not directly loaded with work. My initial weeks included imbibing the culture of Kotak Mahindra Bank and not just working with credit team but with sales and CPA team as well. Members of Sales team taught me how leads are generated, the process of document verification and customer interaction whereas CPA team helped me in understanding the process of organizing raw data into a form that can be analyzed by a credit analyst. If one is pursuing MBA in finance then it is very important to understand the demands of that role. Doing MBA in finance doesn’t mean you have to think only from an accounting perspective. But the role of manager requires to understand various domains as well that are connected to finance for better decision making which can profit the organization. If you get an internship in one domain, try to interact with people of other domains as well to understand the linkage between them. Without sales team, credit team will have no cases to analyze, the process was interdependent and everywhere it works in a similar way.
The process of Credit Analysis involved analyzing the financials of the company to verify its ability of repayment of the loan. It also involved personal discussion with the client to get an idea about the culture of his company as ethics are as important as financials. One most important learning was MBA is not about just theory. They actually teach you what is used in the corporate world. For financial statement analysis, we were using financial ratios that were taught in Trimester 1, So please pay attention in class.
Completing a year in MBA with successful completion of the internship is a milestone in itself. But it would have been impossible without my faculties and my company mentor, Mr. Vicky Punwani. Without his support, this journey would have been impossible. He made sure that I interact with every team and learn as much as possible in those 2 months. I am grateful to him for making it a memorable part of my life.