ISB Hyderabad to introduce summer internships this summer?

There’s a buzz going around in Indian School of Business, Hyderabad: “There’ll be internships at ISB, Hyderabad. Soon.”

How soon? “May be from the next academic season.”

Internships for one-year post graduate programmes? How will that pan out?

While most students we spoke to confirmed the news, we decided to talk to Sriram Gopalakrishnan, Director - Marketing and Communications, ISB. However, he said, “There is definitely a proposal of internships doing rounds. But it won’t be introduced in the upcoming academic session. We are still evaluating the idea.”

So why is ISB planning to introduce internships now?

According to institute insiders, it is difficult to place students in financial sector. “Financial firms prefer to hire students that have interned with them. In this case, IIMs have a certain edge over ISB,” says Harsimran Singh (name changed on request), an ISB alum working with a leading IT firm.

Another alumnus told us that the institute’s Associate Dean had initiated the topic of summer internships while addressing an alum meeting. As a matter of fact, the alum even received an internal email discussing the idea of internships.

ISB currently offers Experiential Learning Programme (ELP) in the third term of PGP. “ELP is an industrial project. Under this program, a team of students develop solutions for a specific problem faced by a firm. But this is a campus-based thing. Students don’t go to firm,” says Gopalakrishnan.

The proposed internship will replace the fourth semester when introduced.

Currently final placements are going on in the institute. The first two rounds of placements are already over.