Excitement had been the only constant since the time I had applied for the internship, until I got shortlisted and finally completed the eight week internship at Bosch.
So, the journey began with a competition, where Bosch had conducted a "Business Idea Competition" at our esteemed campus, we had registered in teams of four, and yes, all four of us were the closest of friends. Maybe that was an add-on to the idea we presented before the panel of judges. The chemistry was just so amazing that each of us knew which portion should be assigned to whom. Everybody excelled during the presentation and we were finally IN for the internship.
So day one, all of us suited up in formals, our mentor Mr. Pavan Govindan kept us posted throughout until we cleared the on-boarding process. Once we met him after collecting our IDs, he guided us about how things functioned in his department. Once he got to know more about us and our previous work experiences, he offered us projects where we could have utilized whatever skills we had acquired in the past. So, in my case, since I had already worked as a video game developer in the past, I was given a project on Gamification in Retail Sector & to check whether IPS (Indoor Positioning Systems) can efficiently be used in implementing the same because Bosch had already implemented the infrastructure for IPS. The excitement grew exponentially and I'm sure my batchmates felt the same with the projects assigned to them.
As I started working on my project, both my company mentor Mr. Pavan Govindan & academic mentor Prof. Aparna A. proactively helped me whenever I asked for it, which is why I feel I was able to accomplish the task allotted to me in the stipulated time. So, I took an approach of studying the past successful examples of gamification implemented by different organisations & mapping them onto the Octalysis Framework for Gamification, once this was done, I was able to quantify all the approaches and the next step was to study current mega trends where Gamification could have been applied. Everything felt into place, and just as an add on Mr. Pavan asked me to check how the next step, personalized Gamification can be offered to increase customer engagement. Also, I'd like to mention that Finances have been my weakness! But after receiving such wonderful support from my mentor, I can definitely say that I'm no more afraid of calculating costs.
While we arrived the final week of our internship, we all had our final presentations, and it felt overwhelming when every person sitting at the panel appreciated my work. Mr. Pavan congratulated me, and simultaneously told me about a few challenges that I might have to face during corporate life. The internship ended well, but the excitement continues!