Think internship is boring? You’d be surprised if you knew the truth
An intensive one-day internship workshop helped HT’s Campus Journalists learn everything about life in a startup company
The Hindustan Times Campus Journalists (CJs), Batch of 2017, utilised the break before reopening of colleges to join an intensive workshop on internships to find out what it meant to do a nine-to-five job.
CJs Ramsha Khan, Remya Nair, Khuisangmi Konghay, Sabika Syed, Shivam Jha, Sagar Dawar, Sehba Mohit, Vrinda Saxena, Malvika Singh and their mentor from Delhi’s Lady Shri Ram College, Deep Samlok, spent some time earlier in the month at Internshala.com, a company in Gurgaon that assists students get work experience in various industries and understand work processes in a start-up.
All the participants had to first pick chits to find out which team they had been assigned to: from marketing to design to HR and operations at the Internshala office. There were mentors assigned to each CJ to guide them through the whole work process of a start-up company.
The art of effective communication was appealing to Konghay. “I was asked to inculcate the same at every stage of my task in the content writing and marketing profile. My mentor explained the method and importance of making my content more visually appealing and simple for the target audience to connect with.”
Some of the CJs like Saxena who expected the internship to be boring and dull were proved wrong. “ Let alone boring, the programme turned out to be one of the those experiences that will stay with me for long. I worked with the graphic designing department and found out what went behind creating logos that made or broke a brand, and even the images that went viral. At first glance, working on the Adobe Illustrator seemed like serious business. Soon, however, it all looked like fun,” she says.
Another CJ who got graphic designing and had a great time exploring design software was Jha. “The workshop exceeded expectations. I worked under the design team, which was something I was looking forward to as I’ve worked on AutoCAD and Solidworks before, but Illustrator brought me to a new world.” Paying attention to detail turned out to be the most important factor “because a simple font selection or colour scheme can entirely affect what you’re trying to project through your artwork,” he adds.
What seemed “peculiar” to Jha, however, was that his team spent more time brainstorming on what was to be designed than the designing process itself. He guessed that happened “because, well, ‘content is king’.”
Singh on her part understood that dealing with people from all walks of life wasn’t a cakewalk. “Being an intern was an amazing ride. The chit picking session (to choose a ‘career) got me in the HR team of a company. Reading CVs and shortlisting a few was tough. It took a lot of time and conducting phone interviews was interesting. People I worked with, I’d rather call them Internship buddies, were very polite and helpful,” she says.
Mohit had to work with the operations team. “We processed internships and even made calls to various employers. Our work included checking applications for errors and authenticating employers. It was a totally different experience and truly an insight into how startups work. The hard work that goes behind every little thing is immense,” she says.
Khan got a chance to learn about the various facets of marketing. She found the office workers “who weren’t more than two to three years older than us really patient and ready to answer all our queries.”
Sagar Dawar thought it was nice to be “welcomed by a team of really nice people.”Dawar worked in the student counselling team and was taught how to deal with people’s queries. “It was a great day, and we learned a lot,” he says.
Syed was a part of the employee relations team which interacts with employers and interns through mailers. She learned the entire process of sending mailers - from selecting the perfect software to shooting off the mailer to the clients. “These people go to great lengths to help their clients which is applaudable. I spent the day laughing, but Hey! I worked too,” she says.
Remya Nair worked with the training department found her mentors extremely fun to work with. Some of the areas they covered included managing and answering e-mails and queries through calls and live chats , looking after the payment section, managing refunds and last but not least, ensuring user satisfaction. “To sum it up, I had a great time and this was an amazing learning opportunity, giving us an insight into the extreme hard work and zeal that goes into running any start-up successfully,” she adds.
