Ananya Rakshit, a mechanical engineering student, got her first internship at ITC Limited while she was still in her third year of college. She says, “I was lucky enough to receive an offer at the end of my internship, but even without the offer, this experience would have helped me.” Adrija Dutta, a microbiology student at Vellore Institute of Technology in Vellore, joined a paint manufacturing company as an intern during her last semester of college. She felt her training would be incomplete if she did not get some work experience in her chosen field. Joyriddha Tarafdar did not wait until his last semester. He had to support his family while pursuing his bachelor’s and master’s in English literature at Jadavpur University in Calcutta. His internship with the National AIDS Control Organisation paid a stipend. “I also got to learn how to conduct field research,” he adds.
Suddenly, every other college student wants to do an internship. Those who absolutely need the hands-on experience, like engineering students or those pursuing a bachelor’s degree in STEM, and also those who don’t have to.
Anwesh Banerjee was in the second year of his bachelor’s degree in English when he applied for his first internship. His parents asked him why he wanted to do one when he was not being paid. He tells The Telegraph, “I told them that getting work experience was also a part of education.” Anushka Satpathy, a second-year student at Symbiosis School of Liberal Arts, Pune, also feels strongly about getting some work experience while she is still a student. As she sees it, it is a much better addition to the CV than being a member of college clubs and societies.
If you are wondering if there are dos and don’ts and must-knows while navigating the world of internships, here’s a list.
Where does one look?
Sift through social media posts to find job roles aligned with your interests, says Adrija. Bookmark platforms such as LinkedIn and Internshala. But remember, for every posting, there are hundreds of applications. When she was still in college, Anushka started sending emails to companies where she wanted to intern.“Before cold emailing, I would research the company thoroughly. In my emails, I would discuss how their recent work inspires me,” she says. Cold emailing is another expression for what some call forced applications. Not every such application elicits a response. Sometimes, it helps to send a follow-up email after an interval of a few weeks. Ananya, being an engineering student, got her internship through her campus placement cell. But if that wasn’t there, she says she would have applied to those companies where her college seniors are presently employed.
What to look for?
Adrija focused on finding work that was closely aligned with her career goals. And when she got her internship at the end of her master’s, she was excited to see for herself how such a vast paint manufacturing company functions. Ananya shares a similar experience. She says, “At ITC, my job was to calculate the quantity of product we should be manufacturing so that all of it is sold in time before the expiry date.” She feels grateful that her supervisors took the trouble to show her around the factories
and manufacturing plants even though hers was a strictly desk job. However, finding such intern-friendly companies requires research. Anwesh too spends considerable time researching target companies and employers before applying for internships. “I would only intern at those companies that have a good reputation in the industry,” he says.
What about pay?
Anushka interned for a content-writing company where she was asked to produce multiple plagiarism-free articles for nominal pay. As an unsuspecting 16-year-old, she set herself up for inevitable failure and had to eventually leave the organisation with a very bitter experience. Traditionally, internships don’t come with a stipend. The association and the work experience were supposed to be the key takeaways. But times change and expectations too. For many college students, the haste to apply for internships comes with the pressure to start earning. “I have never had the luxury to even consider an unpaid internship, no matter how tempting the offer is,” says Joyriddha. Adrija points out, “If your internship requires you to travel to the office or move out to a new city, they should at least be able to reimburse your living cost.”
In the final weigh-in, what you get out of an internship depends on you. “My internship gave me the confidence to communicate with professionals in a corporate setup,” says Ananya. Adrija agrees: “I wanted to get out of my comfort zone and build my network in the industry.”
