As most of the students are getting anxious about their Summer Internships, here is a beautifully crafted article on how to make the best of this time by Radhika Chhapolia from IIM-Lucknow.
As India and other Covid-19 affected countries are putting in place, several measures to contain the wildfire spread of this novel virus, a host of firms across all sectors and industries, the likes of Unilever, McKinsey, TCS are instructing all their members to work-from-home. This is a positive step forward in their efforts to transform their business processes to make it possible for a lot of different members to collaborate creatively and efficiently in order to streamline execution of critical daily jobs. In light of this situation, there is a sense of apprehension and urgency among 2021 graduate students regarding their employer’s intimation about their upcoming summer projects in April.
This article is an attempt to help our students (a lot of freshers too) to make sense of how to be on top-of-their- game even while sitting cozily at home for two long wound months. Here is a small checklist on the things that one should do, in these difficult times:
- Be alert regarding the remote online onboarding sessions (typically webinars), which will entail details regarding IT support, technical specifications and other guidelines.
- One should get a sense- that the transition to online will be gradual; Jobs involving field presence will be worst hit, however, it’s only a matter of time before the original jobs resume.
- Once you’re assigned to a group, setting expectations with clarity about deliverables, both short and long term is a critical step. Ask your managers, what are the must-do things during a typical work-day.
- Get one-on-one time with the people you are working with, to void duplicity of effort.
- Set up a good space to work out of, (while leaving home for coffee shops etc.) is not advocated, a disturbance-free environment will help you focus.
- Communicate, communicate & communicate. Join all meetings that you are supposed to be in, keep track of daily updates, turn your work in, in a timely & orderly fashion. Do not display any signs of being lax.
- Take initiatives, and always remember that over-delivering isn’t a bad thing.
- Remember that maybe, your manager is also taking time to adjust his schedules and plan He will get in touch with you, at a mutually convenient hour, to discuss things you need help with.
- Be pro-active at making connection Not just “networking” but real connections. Take the time, and learn more about your boss, share your stories as well. You need not be fixed to the work, a personal connect is always better.
- Lastly, utilize this time to learn a lot of the skills you would need on the job; the chance to learn by observing your seniors may not be available to you. So, ensure that you have a thorough understanding of your job and can supplement any online training that you receive.
Let’s make the most of this time by understanding that out-of-sight need not necessarily mean out-of-mind.
If you follow set norms, communicate timely and respectfully and take initiatives beyond the narrow scope, to identify and solve for all big and small problems. Present yourself as dependable and trust-worthy. And don’t worry about getting PPO’ed because you need to work hard, and let your successful project make the noise.”
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Comments
Vijay Chauhan
I am enthusiastic learner and CAT aspirant.
mam, can you please tell me the section wise approach.
4 Jun 2018, 06.06 PM
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Krishnika Agarwal
Krishnika Agarwal had scored 99.44%ile in CAT 2017. She will be joining IIM Lucknow this year. She likes painting and traveling, and occasionally indulges in yoga and meditation.
VA - I had given GMAT just before I started my preparations. So that helped me with it. I used Manhattan Sentence Correction Guide for basic exercises. Egmat blogs and webinars really helped me a lot. RC - https://www.gpkafunda.com/solving-rc-passages/ video helped me a lot. Apart from this, it was mostly about choosing the right kind of passages during AIMCATS and spending more time on those. DI/LR - I was able to solve 5-6 passages during AIMCATs, so this was not really a problem for me. But one strategy which helped me during CAT 17 was to skim through all the questions in starting 2-3 minutes. This helped me identify the easy ones and solve them first. Reading all the sets before beginning the section is very important due to the fact that the time is not sufficient to solve all the sets and the level of difficulty varies largely from one set to another. QA - After taking the diagnostic test, I realized that I was out of touch with the formulas. So the first thing I did was to solve the TIME Quant booklets' exercises. Also, while analyzing my AIMCATs, I used to bookmark questions which I felt were different or difficult or had a new concept. I revised these questions 2-3 times before CAT. I used to take as many mocks as possible. The mocks covered almost all kinds of questions and helped me decide the best possible strategy for me.
4 Jun 2018, 09.29 PM |
Vijay Chauhan
I am enthusiastic learner and CAT aspirant.
Thank you very much mam... All the best for your MBA.
8 Jun 2018, 11.33 PM |
Krishnika Agarwal
Krishnika Agarwal had scored 99.44%ile in CAT 2017. She will be joining IIM Lucknow this year. She likes painting and traveling, and occasionally indulges in yoga and meditation.
All the best for CAT!
9 Jun 2018, 01.34 PM |
Muskaan Duggal
Learner....
First off, thankyou for such an informative article, really helped a lot :) I just wanted to ask that do we require a coaching for preparing or are there any online platforms?
9 Jun 2018, 01.07 PM
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Krishnika Agarwal
Krishnika Agarwal had scored 99.44%ile in CAT 2017. She will be joining IIM Lucknow this year. She likes painting and traveling, and occasionally indulges in yoga and meditation.
It depends from person to person. Personally, I felt that test series and TIME material was enough for me. I did not have time to attend the classes. If you have enough time to attend classes (religiously) and still manage to self-study and give mocks, then you can definitely join a coaching. Coaching institutes provide tips and tricks to solve questions. On the other hand, if you do not have sufficient time, then I would recommend you to practice questions and go through their solutions as well. The solutions provided by the coaching institutes consist of the tips to solve the particular question, if any. Online platforms that I referred to: 1) Time test series : Consists of AIMCATs + SAMCATS + 100+ Sectional tests and topic tests 2) CL test series : AIMCATs (with good analysis) + few free material and video lectures on some topics
9 Jun 2018, 01.33 PM |
Muskaan Duggal
Learner....
Thankyou so muchh :D Good luck to you on your IIM journey :) :)
11 Jun 2018, 11.36 AM |
Krishnika Agarwal
Krishnika Agarwal had scored 99.44%ile in CAT 2017. She will be joining IIM Lucknow this year. She likes painting and traveling, and occasionally indulges in yoga and meditation.
Good luck to you too :)
13 Jun 2018, 04.43 PM |