The Placement Journeys
The Placement Journeys — The Beginning
A Compendium of Placement Advice for the Undergraduate Student
Hello! Since you have opened up this story, I assume that you are an undergraduate student who is looking for some real advice on placements. Since I am a final year undergraduate student myself, I absolutely understand the roller-coaster of emotions that you would be going through as placement season closes in. And that’s a predominant reason why I have begun “The Placement Journeys” project. This is an attempt where I try to provide a platform to cater to an undergrad’s questions regarding placements at the fresher level.
Now, since I am publishing this in the FACE Medium Publication that is internal to Amrita School of Engineering, Bengaluru(ASE-B) in its operation, there is no need to think that the content provided would not be useful to a student who is not from ASE-B. This is because, every bit of content that I would be providing here are experiences of students who have sat for placements in companies for entry level positions. Therefore, the journeys shared in this series would be universally applicable to any student(as long as you are somebody who looks forward to hearing about others’ experiences).
What is “The Placement Journeys” Project ?
The Placement Journeys has been conceived as an idea that would go on to include student experiences during placements. The project will include podcasts as well as condensed articles, all born out of interviews that I would be taking of 4th year CSE undergraduates at ASE-B(Batch of 2020) who have been through their placements. The interviews will be based on questions aimed at understanding their experiences during placements, skills employers were looking for, difficulties they faced and other nuances of a placement that are often overlooked by most students during preparation.
Why “The Placement Journeys” Project ?
Every advice on placements ever given by those responsible are usually too general for students. While such tips prove very useful for some students, a larger majority often find it very difficult to comprehend those ideas. The reason is probably because the general advice provided easily overlooks the specificity involved in each student’s thinking process and ability to adapt to a situation.
Two students can react in two entirely different ways when they face a final round rejection at a placement opportunity. And if we are going to give the same kind of advice to both the students, it is highly unlikely that both will be helped.
And honestly, I am guilty of the above! I remember being on call with a friend who was dejected after a rejection and in order to console him, I told the most obvious thing — “It’s okay. You will get a better job.”
That is an absolute lethargic response, but that’s probably the best most of us can do, because consoling a person who feels hopeless is not an easy task!
But, what if this person had access to a similar journey of somebody prior to him/her? Would that not help them understand that they are not alone? Would that not help them gain fresh hope? Would that not engender newfound inspiration in a dejected mind?
And that’s why I decided to start “The Placement Journeys” project — An initiative by students for students. A platform which would let you know that you are not alone,that there have been people who have walked the same path that you are on right now.
Also, the content of this project would be displayed as Medium articles on the FACE publication. Therefore, it would increase the accessibility of the content for students.
What’s next?
From the next article(which will be out by the end of the week), “The Placement Journeys” project shall begin providing its content based on its initial promise. So, stay tuned for the first interview!
Do you wish to share your placement journey with us?
If you are a CSE student at ASE-B(Batch of 2020) who wishes to share your placement journey with the project, do let me know! You can send in a mail to yadramshankar@gmail.com. Or connect with me on Twitter.
Have any suggestions?
I am open to suggestions from the student community as I believe it would help me improve the project. So, do let me know if you have any suggestions and we shall discuss over it.
