One can never know the answer to “Why MBA?” until they have been in a real corporate set-up.
Having had no corporate exposure prior to my stint at XIMB, my Summer Internship thus has been a valuable life experience that not only gave me a peek into the life I might lead a year later but also gave me a chance to introspect about my job preferences.
Internships mean different things to different people: money, networking opportunity, learning experience or a course requirement.
I interned with the Human Capital service area of Deloitte USI, and I can proudly say for myself and my fellow interns that for us it meant all of the above and definitely more.
My 8 weeks with Deloitte USI took me to a new city: Bengaluru. The Garden City has been a garden of memories; memories that I made at work, with colleagues and friends. Of course, no description of Bangalore can be complete without mentioning the terrible traffic and high levels of dust and pollution prevalent there. Fortunately, the city has a lot more to it than these shortcomings. Bangalore boasts of an extremely pleasant weather all year round (especially a boon during peak summer months of April-May), multitude of restaurants, pubs, eateries and food delivery options (for the lazier ones of us), several malls and shopping complexes to humour the shopaholics in us and a wonderful public bus service plying at even odd hours. Knowing Tamil or Kannada might give you an edge in communication, but I did fine with Hindi and English too. Bangalore is famous for weekends, as they used to say in my office; and trust me no one needs to have e boring weekend in the city unless intended to. I have travelled, shopped, eaten out and gone to pubs. My weekends have been active and my weekend Whatsapp status stories have been regular!
Of course, the internship experience is within the office premises. So let us start from the premises. The Deloitte office in Bangalore is a 6-floor office building divided into 2 inter-connected campuses. The interiors are very neat and swanky with minimalistic furniture and no loud dash of colour.
Undoubtedly the best thing about Deloitte is its flat hierarchy and the freedom bestowed upon practitioners to openly ask questions, raise issues and approach people of even PPMD level. They call it the
culture of courage and it undeniably is one of the main reasons why Deloitte is the biggest of the Big 4! The work culture is flexible and inclusive. People are always friendly and helpful. Anyone not so, is deemed unfit for the firm. They are a competitive firm but only externally. Internally, they believe in collaboration and association. Everyone I came across: my Project lead, teammates, and other practitioners contributed to a smooth climb up my nascent corporate learning curve.
My work with the firm has been an all-around experience with client project exposure, basic training, an elaborate induction (with good food!), internal project responsibilities and a lot of networking opportunities across locations and work areas. My 8 weeks at Deloitte have been a mixture of hectic and fun and very high on people interactions. I have worked late night when the pressure of deliverables was high, but I have also had “Friday Frolic” fun activities at the office.
If I had to sum it up, I would say it has been a roller coaster and high caffeine ride (because of free coffee at office pantry) for 8 weeks! The people, the place and the time I had there have been etched in my memories for the foreseeable future. Deloitte has allowed me to experience the feeling of looking forward to Fridays as well as Mondays; all at the same time.
The Deloitte Experience has been unforgettable!
Trisha Pal
Class of 2019