Students’ Speak: Internships are playgrounds to apply your knowledge in real-time business environment

By: Abhishek Desai

Internships can add great value to the resume if students can land an opportunity. Abhishek Desai points out how internships can become a playground to put to test your classroom learnings in actual business scenarios.

For all the students pursuing full-time PGDM/MMS programme from Welingkar Mumbai campus, it is compulsory to pursue a summer internship in an organization for at least two months (could be extended at the sole discretion of the particular company) in the month of May – June, during summer vacations. The students have two options — to look out for internship opportunities on their own or rely completely on the opportunities provided by the placement cell of Welingkar referred to as the ‘Career Management Cell’ (CMC).   

The college also has good associations with many companies who sometimes conduct a pool campus interview round. The cell notifies students regarding the important dates and processes involved. Pursuing a summer internship helps one understand not only how to implement the classroom learnings in an office environment but also to get great corporate exposure. It also helps in making a student realise whether he or she is a good fit for the domain they had planned to make a career in.  

Coming to the projects undertaken during the internship, they could be unique and generally vary from one company to another. The companies before starting their interview process usually mention what role and responsibility an intern would be expected to fulfill at the time of pre-placement talk itself (this talk happens before the interview rounds are conducted). If candidates can bag an internship as soon as the placements begin, they have ample time to hone their skills more for the related internship role. This would come in handy not only during the internship but also later during the final placements. The skills can be sharpened further by taking up live projects, certification courses, etc.   

Apart from the mandatory summer internship, students here can even pursue a winter internship to get more business exposure if they wish to do so. It helps freshers a lot in adding value to their resumes. If students have a good clarity over the thing that they want to do in their career, these internships can act as a great learning curve for them. For example, someone aspiring to make a career in the Analytics sector can look out for similar opportunities irrespective of the factors such as the brand or stipend.

I did my internship at TimesofMoney, Navi Mumbai for 2 months (May-June) wherein my role was to conduct secondary market research and design reports for the company's business expansion in new territories. I had to conduct research on the project "International Remittances in the Asia-Pacific region", wherein I interpreted how the global and regional remittances industries function as well as gathered in-depth information on the potential countries in the Asia-Pacific region. The experience was enriching as it made me aware of the various current and upcoming trends in this sector and its positive impact on society.  

In the end, an internship is another playground wherein you put to test the classroom learnings in a real-time business environment.

About the Author:

Abhishek Desai is currently pursuing Post Graduate Diploma in Management (PGDM) in e-Business from Welingkar Institute of Management. He has done his Summer Internship in the field of Market Research with 'TimesofMoney'. He's also served as 'Secretary of the Green Committee' at Welingkar.