Academic programs have a tendency to be fairly theoretical for the most part. An internship allows to interrupt far from it and get into the corporate world to strive out some of the remarkable ideas learnt within the business school magnificence.
Determining what role, function or company I should aspire to throughout my search for a summer internship was like a mammoth venture. My inclination towards analytics turned out as an essential condition while applying for internships. I started preparing for internships by identifying the areas I need to work on to get into an analytics role. The most important part is to research and cover all of the technical skills that will be used during internship such as: advanced excel, statistical analysis techniques. The core skills required for Analytics are probability and statistics. A few important topics which I specifically focussed and is used extensively while working on a data science problem are:
Descriptive Statistics - Mean, Median, Mode, Variance and Standard Deviation
Probability - Bernoulli Trials & Probability Mass Function, Central Limit Theorem, Normal Distribution
Inferential Statistics - Confidence Interval, Hypothesis Testing, Correlation
After I covered those, I started to work on my general knowledge for which I regularly followed newspaper and better my communication skills which are very important to clear a Group Discussion.
I interned in a company called Lodestar Education Services Private Ltd. This company is from Technology sector. Lodestar is India's initial scientific career guidance program for students. The program helps youngsters create a sensible career call in a very straightforward and simple means by using correct information, extremely evolved scientific decision-making tools.
The selection procedure for Lodestar was done in two steps – firstly, A data driven case study was give for which an optimal solution for the problem addressed in the case was expected. Secondly, there was interview round.
The interview was mostly based on practical question which basically tested my approach to solve data driven problem. Certain tips that can help to crack the interview are that build the ability to structure your thoughts. The interviewer will choose you to your potential to break down a problem statement into smaller steps. For any given problem declaration, it's miles essential to pick out what the end intention is. The next step is to understand the statistics you’re given and pen down a technique required to get to that end intention. And all of this happens in a finite time frame so that you really need to work on puzzle solving ability.
You must grasp the business of the company, how things work there and therefore the organization’s vision before you choose to apply for internship in any organization.
Summer Internships offer the active expertise needed to grasp the usefulness and application of the theories learnt My internship project was a great learning experience for me. As a Product Research intern my project work focused on –
- Analysing customer feedback gathered to add a new product feature which was Parent Feedback Index. Pilot project to create the Parent Feedback Index.
- Carrying out various quantitative and qualitative secondary research to gather information regarding various career and industry related data.
- Generating insights from the research data gathered to figure out patterns and project future trends for various industries and careers as a part of product enhancement.
The very first learning for me was that 70% of the tasks involved data cleaning.I learnt a way to structure a problem declaration, recognize the domain and the facts required to resolve the problem, and then determine out assets to extract that facts. I learnt how to look for factors that affect the goal variable and make inferences, build a hypothesis, visualize information, locate insights, and most significantly, constantly communicate the findings with the organization mentor. Since I performed secondary research as part of my venture, I found out that rigorous researches ought to be carried out before coming up with any conclusion and precisely evaluate each and every parameter of research to get accurate insight.
Apart from this there's large help, support, guidance and openness of employees within the company. Everyone has been approachable and equipped to answer my questions or deal with my queries. This has helped me in enriching my knowledge of the business notably.
The research project helped the organisation with a handful of data which can be used by the counsellors. The data collected can be used as a basis for further research. The project “Parent Feedback Index Creation” was a pilot project. The index calculation method derived can be used by the organisation to come up with an index which is a quantifiable value to represent the satisfactory level of parents and students with the Career Guidance Programme. This index will also help the organisation for the product and service development. Apart from the two projects, I also helped the organisation with data collection regarding various integrated courses and colleges across India. I carried out secondary research to gather the information. This data was used by the Counsellor’s while generating career report for the students. I worked along with the Product manager to prepare a School feedback report.
My internship journey was fairly smooth and all thanks to my Company mentor. She is a very humble, and a down to earth character with a high-quality welcoming aura. She made me extremely at ease and was willing to know my learning in the PGDM program so far, and what I intend to get out of the internship. I am really grateful for her unending inputs, support and constant encouragement throughout the course of my summer internship. She was always eager to know my work progress, helped me whenever I struggled with anything. Even as an intern I was treated the same way like a full-time employee. This helped me to adjust with the company culture. She enhanced my self -confidence and boosted my ability of decision making.
The two months of internship helped me to be better prepared for the second year of PGDM and final placements. It helped me in getting better informed about my interests and reinforced my passion for Analytics.