My Internship. Delivered. - Summer Internship at Maersk
“'Tis skill, not strength, that governs a ship”
“'Tis skill, not strength, that governs a ship”
It is often said that, only when you have your back against the wall do you come out with your best, or the creative best in this case. I’m Bhuvan Deep Dua and this is an account of the challenges I faced in my internship and how I went about them.
There are things you don’t expect to experience in a short span of 2 months, and when they guide you to explore characteristics you didn’t know you had, you know you couldn’t have asked for more from an internship.
Life is beautiful when you have bagged that coveted summer placement offer. April is about to arrive and you are game for it. You are fairly confident, well versed with business fundamentals, work hard and can communicate well and have great academic credentials. You cant see any hurdles, after all what could possibly go wrong, nothing. Or so you think.
A saga is defined as a long story of heroic achievement. When my internship with Mondelez International (or Cadbury as it is better known as) began, I certainly didn’t feel very heroic. Robbed of my signature French beard thanks to maternal pressure on corporate conformity, I felt quite naked as I walked into the colourful Cadbury Building on Bhulabhai Desai Road. The two months that followed were beyond my wildest expectations, but at that moment, I was trying my best to look manly as hell and failing.
My summer internship experience doesn't begin from day one on the job but from day one in the IIM Lucknow campus. I would like to share it in the episode format of my favorite TV series, Friends.
The first day of my internship, I woke up quite early (not because it was my first day, but because of the time difference), got ready and left for office. There I had my first embarrassing moment: I fell down in the tram, not being used to the turns and breaks of the tram. Finally, I got down at the right stop but still I was lost! Then came my first shot at conversing with foreign strangers for asking the route. After first few attempts I realized I was in a majorly French speaking country where people write R but pronounce it as ‘Kh’, meaning they write something and speak something else. I managed to learn the odd pronunciation and finally reached my destination that was my second home for the next two months – International Trade Centre (Joint agency of WTO and UN, Geneva).