Internship: ’Tis not the season for all
Why this blog post?
Well, one of the main reasons behind writing this blog entry is the fact that there are tons and tons of success stories/blogs out there, written by the seniors of our college and other people who got an intern/placed in really good companies. But at the same time, nobody seems to talk about failures. Those success stories paint a rosy picture about the internship and the placements. But, that picture might not be for everyone. 🙈
For some, that picture might actually be very disturbing. The purpose of writing this blog post is to shed some light on another side of the story: a situation where things are not as lovely as they are shown to be.
A Brief Introduction about me
My name is Rohit Rao and I am in my final year of engineering in Computer Science from Netaji Subhas Institute of Technology, and I am currently placed in A++ category company with a really good package.
I joined NSIT the year when a news headline read — 8 students from NSIT get Rs 1.25cr package from Google. Those figures pulled me into the main auditorium for the orientation here at NSIT, where we were told by our seniors that — “CP karo, intern aur placement sabki lag jaati hai ”.
Hence, like most of the students of my batch, I too started with Competitive Programming after the end of the first semester. Today, I consider myself a good enough ( may have multiple interpretations) coder. Apart from that, I have also done projects in Web Development, Android Development, and Machine Learning.
Prologue
Life was pretty decent during the first two years. Apart from a few nasty subjects and dreadful professors, things were pretty fine. We were busy in our own worlds. Some busy with the society practices, others in gossiping with friends while some involved in discussing questions from a recent CC challenge or CF rounds. We knew that we had to study Geeks For Geeks for our internship preparation but that was reserved for the two months of the vacations.
The Vacation Months
GFG and InterviewBit were till then in the “chua bhi nahi hai” category 😅, as they have traditionally been reserved for these two months from “generation to generation”. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the intern or placement procedures, the preparation for the internship/placement season involves mugging up as many GFG articles as you possibly can.
I started with GFG in the month of June right after the end semester exams. Along with reading the articles and coding a few of them, I also practiced questions simultaneously on InterviewBit. The competitive programming questions attempted and the algos learnt in the past 1.5 years were a real help at this time. By the end of July, I was pretty confident about my preparation.
But as it turned out, life had different plans in store for me.
’Tis the season?
The internship season at NSIT begins in the last week of July. In the first 2 weeks, the majority of the big brands 😍 visit the campus including DE Shaw, Arcesium, Goldman Sachs, Amazon, Microsoft Samsung, Adobe to name a few.
The first company to visit for an intern at my time was DE Shaw. Owing to a percentage below 75%, I could not sit for it 😕. So the first company that I sat for was Goldman Sachs, which was the second company to visit the campus. Except for DE Shaw and Amazon, which had a percentage barrier of 75%, I was eligible to sit for all other companies.
During the initial phase of the internship season, I would get up early every morning, excited the new company visiting the campus 😁, put on my formals with full enthusiasm, sit for the test, wait for the results and then return home dejected 😔on not being shortlisted. The same routine would follow the next day as well. I was sad but not broken yet as the words of those seniors still ran in my ears — CP karlo intern lag jayegi.
The first Interview
Expedia visited the campus for an internship on the 20th of August, 2017. As usual, I sat for the test, with little hope of making through. But as it turned out, I was shortlisted 😍 along with 28 other people from my batch. The interviews were scheduled for 23rd August at 1:30 P.M. I decided to take a quick nap before leaving for college that afternoon. When I woke up, there were about 10 missed calls from a friend of mine. Knowing that this meant trouble I instantly called her back up and checked the mail and viola…. The interview time has been shifted back to 12:30 😱 (yeah! that’s TnP for you 🤦♂️). I hurried off to college in a haste. The interviews had already begun by the time I reached so I was the 16th person to be interviewed.
My first round of the interview did not go as well as I would have wished it had, as I fumbled on the algo which I said was my “favorite”. Luckily enough I cleared that round and was called for the second round after a few minutes. By the end of the second round, 7 of us remained out of the 29 candidates initially. The third round was the HR round, ”jismein koi reject nahi hota”. I was. They finally selected 6 people out of 7 and I was the only one rejected💔. The entire process had gone up till 9 in the night and I returned home at 9:30 with the same verdict -
The story continues
Expedia was the first company that I was shortlisted for, but the verdict was the same as had been since the start of the season. After the first month, the frequency of the companies visiting the campus reduced, and the panic switch in me was turned on 😰. By the end of October, I had been rejected by about 10–12 companies, in the interviews. There were many last round rejections and even the first and second round rejections had their fair share. In some cases, I even returned home at 12 in the night. As the months passed by, less and less number of bigger brands visited the campus and more no of startups started visiting. But as for me, the verdict was always the same.
By the end of October, I was in a total panic mode and had lost absolutely all hope. Yet, somehow I still managed to continue on and this was largely because of the support of my friends, seniors, and parents. They believed in me when I myself did not.
The one big mistake
Whenever a person panics, he is bound to make some mistakes and the same did happen to me as well. My mistake was that I became choosy about the company that I would sit for and those that I would not 🤦♀️. I skipped some of the companies that were “not too well known”, only because I wanted to get into a bigger brand.
Now one might think that any sane person would never do such a thing. But look, when you are in that situation, when you see all the random people around you getting an intern from big brands like Amazon or GS, it kills 😖. That time it’s not about sanity or calmness, it’s about that one big name, that one big brand that you want on your resume. But that’s exactly how it is. Internships and Placements can be very random. Someone might be asked to code the BFS function while in the same interview you might be asked to code Convex Hull. There’s nothing one can do about it 🤷♂️.
The off-campus portals: A rat’s nest
Applying off campus to companies is a really daunting task. Not that the application procedure is difficult. But it’s what follows after it that is really challenging. Most of the companies do not even care to mail back 😒. Don't know whether they ever even read any of the applications or not. Anyway, I had started applying off-campus to companies in November. Of all the companies that I applied to, barring 3–4 companies, none ever cared to reply back. I then started texting all the seniors I knew for referrals. But even they could not help much as most of the companies did not take referrals for an intern.
With nothing to lose, I kept applying to companies wherever I saw an opening. This continued throughout the sixth semester, The tension was such that I could not even concentrate on my exams, as a result of which my percentage took a huge dip.
A word of advise
It would be advisable to anyone to anyone to stop looking for an intern in the month of April or before and instead devote your time for the placement preparation. It might be hard I know, but it’s necessary. Moreover, you’ll have some advantage over your fellow batchmates in the sense that when they’ll be working their asses off in the intern, you’ll have sufficient time to prepare for the placement season. By the end of the two months you, if you have worked hard seriously you will know more than them and this will help you immensely in the placement season.
Finally,
For all your days prepare, and meet them ever alike. When you are the anvil, bear — when you are the hammer, strike.
Edwin Markham
All the Best
Rohit Rao
