Students’ Speak: Internships help boost student’s confidence for placement interviews

In an interaction with Shiksha, Tata Subramanian, an MBA student at Thiagarajar School of Management (TSM) shares the kind of projects undertaken during an internship and its importance during the course.

Q: Is there any internship required for the course?

A: Yes, an internship is a must at TSM in order to complete the MBA course. The duration of the internship is of three months for PGDM and two months for MBA. Students can either apply for placements through off-campus or through on-campus by placement team. The placement team shares the internship details of the organisation and the student can choose to apply. For on-campus, the students will be selected either on the basis of their resume or by personal interview. This depends upon the process followed by the organisation. Internships provide a student with the practical aspects of the organisation and a chance to apply the concepts they learnt in the classroom.

Q: What projects are undertaken during internships or otherwise to benefit placements?

A: The projects undertaken during the internship can be research-oriented where you prepare a set of questionnaires and do a survey/personal interview/focus interviews, etc. Based on the research, you can prepare a report highlighting key findings. Apart from this, one can do a project on a particular department of an organisation highlighting the problems in the process and the potential solutions for improving it. The solution can be of incremental in nature i.e. building upon the existing process or suggesting a radically new process. If you are not able to find any potential problem then you can do an observation study highlighting your work, various systems and good practices followed by the organisation. Finally, you prepare a report based on the nature of the project that you have chosen. Apart from your internship, you can do projects under your college professors based on your area of interest like in HR, marketing, finance, etc. This can tremendously help in boosting your resume. Doing a live project will also help you in generating interest in the subject you are studying and will give you confidence during interviews.

Q: Is there any off-campus placement activities?

A: Yes, our college also conducts off-campus placement activities based on the organisation requirement. Organisations such as Jaro Education have conducted off-campus placements in our college where students from other colleges also participated. Apart from this, a student can look for off-campus opportunities on his own and there is no restriction on that. However, for on-campus placements, there are certain rules. Students can maximum avail only one placement from the college if selected in a particular organisation. However, the student can apply for off-campus placements through the college even if he got selected through on-campus.

About the Author:

Tata Subramanian is pursuing MBA from Thiagarajar School of Management (TSM) in Marketing and HR. He is a passionate public speaker who is enthusiastic about new technologies in marketing. A fan of crime fiction novels, he loves to study human nature. He is also a core committee member of debating and quiz club.