‘Often, there is no defined role for summer interns’

MBA students from Jindal Global Business School share their views:

Summer placements play a pivotal role in deciding the career that a student would like to have. It gives a brief insight of the domain in which a student interns in the organisation. Summer internships give a chance to student to have a hands-on experience. What sounds interesting theoretically may not be interesting practically, and that is where internships help in the decision-making process for a student.

Internships offer a glimpse of the career we would like to have and thus help us judge our competencies that will ultimately help us climb the ladder of our career. It also helps us when we are not sure of our area of interest and thus offers a chance to change the area in which we would like to work in later.

During my summer internship, I was assigned to the purchase and sourcing department. Summer internships are supposed to give the kind of work experience that a student would go through in his career. But, at times, there are certain limitations that come in the way of fully benefiting from the experience.

In the organisation I was assigned, there were no guidelines or instructions for the kind of work that organisation would expect from interns. I was assigned to go to vendors for maintaining a regular inflow of materials. But then I realised that the quality of work that an MBA student can offer would be greater than what I was doing. Just tracking the vendor’s side to ensure that he is manufacturing inputs and dispatching them on time is something a less qualified employee could easily do.

The real work that managers were doing in the organisation was completely different and obviously very productive. Again, while I was working within the department, I found my contribution to be limited because other employees, including my boss, could often not spare much time for me. As an intern, it taught me that better planning by my employer would have benefited me and the organisation to a much greater extent.

Rohit Rajpal

My experience in a summer internship was a fruitful one. I was fortunate enough to work in an infrastructure financing project. The company is into renewable energy and aims to develop wind farms in India and elsewhere in Asia. I was working for a project to be developed near Kullu, Himachal Pradesh. I was to prepare two documents, namely, the Information Memorandum and the Financial Modelling report. The purpose of these documents was for presentations to a creditor (a bank in our case) for the approval and sanction of a loan.

Not being a science student, it was challenging work as I had to learn all about hydro power projects and their working. I was fortunate enough to find a mentor who explained to me the workings, parts, costs and other aspects of the project. This helped me understand and analyse the technical aspects of the project , which, I believe, led to more meaningful financial analysis, and a proper preparation of the documents.

Siddharth Bhatnagaris

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