"When the going gets tough, the tough gets going"
The line captures my experience of internship from the start of interviews till the end of internship. On a fine day, the internship bug hit me and there was a rush to get placed ahead of others and enjoy the rest of the time in peace. Because, more delay in getting an internship, more the mental unrest. Also, the rejections dent the morale to an extent. That's why the unseen and hidden rush captivates everyone in the placement season. However, my attribution of importance stemmed from the thought, that a good internship will stamp my good grasp on finance field despite being from engineering background, thus giving me good jugglery for the final placement interview, to sharply beat down the question "How would you do Finance being from non-finance background" and all other related cliches. Not to forget the other side, that community expects higher score in aptitude from engineers, which we never miss also.
With all that in mind, the bugle sounded with the arrival of first company on campus and the speculations begin about the star of the day-zero placements. Unluckily, this was not my day. Hence, it was awakening to the reality of the competition and expectation of recruiters. Taking cues from this, I sat in second selection process which required aptitude instead of GD, now that's a respite and an opportunity as well. In this process, I was selected for the interview round. However, interview never happened even after waiting for the half of the day. Beloved readers, you can't imagine the reason for this. It was because recruiting HR had a flight to catch and for the number of selections to be made, number of interviews conducted by that time was enough for her. So she denied to take interviews further, I became a victim of her irrational and mindless choice. I was livid on hearing this.
Moving on to the third process in which I was selected for the role of financial analyst tasked with understanding Forex and Indian equity markets. I was happy to learn that internship would start on 1st of April without any break from the last day of exams. A break between would have meant a disconnect from ongoing rhythm. My mentor at the company, taught us well, valued our time. He had explained the money-minting strategies from both Forex and equity markets. And he categorically said to promote Forex trading that
"In equity, you make money, but in Forex, you make wealth" and tried to build on it, in every session. However, I have put that to test and have not taken the statement in face value, after all he is a trader and they make bets in every statement. He had an acute love for options trading, it seemed like he treated Options as his good friend and was able to do correct predictions and best friends know what he/she is going to do next in any scenario. I met students from diverse colleges and made friends, went out for parties. It was good to know different perspectives about MBA and random talks about markets. Sometimes, while trading and finding good currency pairs or equities to invest in, it felt like a scene similar to "Wolf of wall street" when a bunch of traders shout out loud in a room about their profits/losses and predictions. That was altogether a different experience. However, it was important to not get lost in the vicious attraction of trading. After all, a rookie is a rookie and that realization saves you from losing money in markets instead of dreaming to become a billionaire in short time. Paranoia is good at times.
With all that period of learning, interaction, the take away is to decide your line of career. After spending two months or eight weeks, one should be well placed to decide what line of career to be pursued?