Summer Internship Experience At Dr. Reddy's | Adiba Ahmed

Back in March 2020 if anyone would have told me that my internship would be virtual, I am sure I would have made a LOL face! The non-pandemic facing, not yet virtual internship braving Adiba would have found it extremely ridiculous. Saying that I am sure a lot of my fellow 2021 cohort b-school brethren would resonate with this feeling because wherever we are studying summer internship tends to be the ‘The Thing’ as you step into a B-School. From the gyan we receive from our seniors to the late-night practice sessions (read grilling), to the dreams of ‘life is set’ after a PPO; summer internship tends to be all we think of in the first sem. The competition, the adrenaline rush on the placement day, and the relief after that...all of it makes you look forward to the Summer Internship experience. And if that wasn’t sufficient the stories you hear from your seniors who have interned in that same company just takes the anticipation way up! Now with that premise if you are told you are not going to be physically visiting your internship organization, you will be locked at your home with only Email, Zoom/ MS Team, Phone calls as a way to communicate with your mentor and other stakeholders and yet you are expected to work on a live project...Ummm I guess you got my point! It would seem daunting, frustrating, irritating, and all of it. That was precisely my state when I got to know about it. After a lot of crying and cribbing, I did what any logical person would do. I accepted this as my current reality. And then if you think about it, “It was still a level playing ground. All my fellow interns were doing SI through a virtual setting like me, all of us largely faced the same constraints, all of us were facing a pandemic for the first time, and so I realized none of us were really at a disadvantage.” I am not sure how much that makes sense but trust me this realization helped me in staying calm and focused as we started nearing the first day of our internship. Sharing below my preparation, experience, and some anecdotes with you! I hope it helps :) Pre-internship Phase: As Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories is a pharmaceutical company so the first thing I did was to understand the industry better. I did a course on pharma basics from Udemy, went through the website diligently, read about their different business units, their major products, what they recently have been in news for, etc. I also went through their annual reports which I definitely would recommend anyone joining as an intern or even full-time employee. It gives you insights on where they are focusing as an organization and gives subtle hints on their value system. I even went ahead and read Dr. K. Anji Reddy’s autobiography ‘The Unfinished Agenda’ (which is a tad too much!). In my defense, as I was going to intern with the Learning & Development team at Dr. Reddy’s I wanted to have closer insight on the culture to support in whatever learning initiatives I was going to be part of. I would also suggest to brush up academic subjects if you have time and clarity on which team you will be interning with. As I already came with 3 years of experience in L&D prior to joining my masters in Organisation Development, Change, and Leadership at Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai I focused on the area which I knew little about i.e Pharma as an industry. Start of Internship A huge shout out to Dr. Reddy’s campus team is a must here! The communication was flawless which I believe is extremely important considering the virtual setting of the internship. The team shared a clear pre-internship itinerary with us with reading material and made it a point to connect multiple times before Day 1 to get all the technical aspects sorted. They even went ahead and created a set of guidelines for interns, mentors, buddies, etc. to clearly set expectations. The icing on the cake was multiple touchpoints that were identified for us. I kid you not, this was extremely helpful as we had a clear road map on what the internship would look like in the coming two months and who should we reach out for what. On D day, I dressed up in the formal suit I hoped to wear while being in Dr. Reddy’s Leadership Academy in Hyderabad and sat in front of the laptop! It was a bittersweet feeling but then I reminded myself, “Though the challenge is bigger, the satisfaction of completing it would be way better.” With that, we started with a rigorous two-day induction, got a taste of different aspects of Dr. Reddy’s, and kick-started the internship. I remember the campus team saying that they wanted our first week to go great and that by the end of it we should be extremely clear on what we have to do in the coming weeks, and trust me it did happen like that. I am sure I never had so much clarity on what I am supposed to do in any of my previous stints in such a short time. Though it was a virtual internship, Dr. Reddy’s lived up to its reputation. I got a chance to work on a live project which was the focus area of the team in that financial year. That means each deliverable counted, had to be completed by timeline, couldn’t be done in silos, and required a good understanding of the context. They could have easily given us a research project as we weren’t physically there but they aimed to provide us a good learning experience which they certainly did and also to analyze our potential for a PPO even if they couldn’t observe us directly. Competitions, Analysis & Possibility of a PPO in Corona Times To compensate for this long-distance engagement, Dr. Reddy’s kept us on our toes with competitions and challenges. From fitness to strategy to storytelling to analyzing our expertise in our area of studies along with the projects. They kept us engaged all the time! To be true I am grateful for the distraction, with all that was happening around the world immersing myself in the internship kept me sane. Over the course of time, I started seeing the advantages of the internship being virtual! (Can you believe that! Advantages!) First and foremost I was at home, safe and with family (who tend to go annoying at times but are usually supportive!). I did not have to worry about traveling or cooking or laundry or other stuff. With no weekend plans except Netflix and chill, I could completely focus on the internship and make the most of the time I had. Also, I just had to focus on my project as the possibility of ad-hoc work was less, though that is a disadvantage as well for the project it worked well. I was able to deliver more than I expected. Saying that there were challenges too. Initially getting hold of stakeholders was tough, understanding the unsaid culture of the team was difficult, and knowing my way around was crazy! With all that 2 months passed slowly and really fast. From weekly reviews to mid review to final presentation the project came in better shape and my sinusoidal behavior of freaking out and staying in control finally found a midpoint. Technology screw-ups were inevitable which kept on happening throughout the two months. Sometimes I cannot hear people, sometimes they cannot hear me, sometimes the presentation wouldn’t load or wifi would go for a vacation (Facepalm moments!). It happened in my final presentation too! Can you beat that! Precisely that day all the network providers conspired to screw my 15 mins to glory. Fortunately, the campus team came to rescue, they shared their screen to display my presentation and I spoke about it. Phew! Continued End All this happened last month! Fortunately, my team gave me an internship extension and I got a chance to work with them for another month. I wouldn’t lie, I felt great about it, it felt my contribution made a difference and they would like to have me around longer. In a normal internship, this would never be possible. So grudgingly I thank the ‘New Normal’ we live in. My internship ends in the coming week and it is again a bittersweet feeling. But I go back with a huge bundle of learnings, confidence that I can work from anywhere and a great summer internship experience….even if it was a long-distance one! I hope my experience helps you in either preparing for an internship with Dr. Reddy’s or braving a virtual internship if you are ever stuck in one! Feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions or want to say hello! #summerinternship #summerinternshipchronicles #summersaga #summersaga202 #dr.reddy’s laboratories