“AICTE, planning to mandate 3 internships for engineering students” has been a hot topic for over a year now. And, you must be wondering about the motive behind it and what difference would it really make (Source: TOI).

 

In the last one decade, employability has been a prime issue of concern in India, especially in the field of engineering. Every year, out of all the engineering graduates, ~60% remain unemployed (Source: TOI). Major reasons behind this are skill-gap and lack of practical knowledge. Both of these issues can be addressed with meaningful internships as they provide the students with an opportunity to update their skill-set by deploying them in a real-time environment. And, this significance of internships is the exact reason why AICTE is so adamant on making internships mandatory for engineering students.

 

Let’s have a look at Shridhivya’s story and see, how an internship launched her career in the mechanical industry.

 

A student of Thiagarajar College of Engineering, Shridhivya KS had a love for mechanical engineering and aspired to do a job in a core company instead of an IT company. So, when she came to know about the internship programme of a France based core organisation, she saw an opportunity and applied for it. After a rigorous hiring process, she was hired for the 7-week long internship along with 32 other students from all over India. During the internship, she had to lead a team and work on a live project and implement it by the end of her internship.

 

After the initial training in manufacturing and QC methodologies, she started working on her project based on WCM standard kaizen methodology. She worked end-to-end on the project right from studying the process layout to analysing data and suggesting new ideas. After the successful implementation of her project during the internship period, a panel reviewed her project and interviewed her. She was assessed on the basis of her performance, technical knowledge, and professional ethics, which resulted in her grabbing a pre-placement offer with the company.

 

Internships are of utmost importance for engineering students and can go a long way in helping them build successful careers. Here’s how:

 

• Makes you industry ready – During an internship, you work on real projects, get acquainted with the current market trends, sharpen your technical skills, and learn in-demand technical skills. Apart from this, an internship introduces you to the corporate world, teaches you professional ethics and polishes your soft skills like communication and interpersonal skills. With an internship, you could become an engineer way before your graduation which could prove to be extremely helpful for an effortless adaptation to work environment when you join a full-time job.

 

• Helps you land a job – An internship experience validates your skill-set and therefore, catalyses your hiring process that is, improves your chances of getting a placement/job. Also, a considerable number of internships come with a pre-placement offer (PPO) which gives you an opportunity to prove your abilities and convert your internship into a full-time job. Besides this, internships allow you to create your professional network which could come in handy when you are applying for jobs in future.

 

• Explore your options – Each branch of engineering is a vast realm of subjects. However, when you are on job, you are required to work in specific areas only. For instance, if you are a computer engineer, you could specialise in web development, data analysis, software development, or software testing. Internships offer you the opportunities to explore different aspects of your branch and help you choose the most suited field to pursue a job or higher education in.

 

 

Where could you find internships?

In today’s digital era, the opportunities are just a click away from you. There are various online internship portals that are offering hundreds of internship opportunities in a diverse range of fields. You could simply go to those, register yourself and start applying to internships as per your interests, availability, and expectations from the internship.

 

 

The debate over paid vs unpaid internships

The primary objective of an internship is definitely is to learn and gain experience which is why internships offer a stipend and not a salary. In fact, in a recent survey which we conducted, we found that students value learning and mentorship over the brand value and the stipend. Also, the interns cannot pay the bills that need to be paid immediately with only learning if they are to do unpaid internships. Money is especially a factor for college students who have graduated but are yet to find a job.

 

While in principle, barring exceptions like internships in niche profiles, NGOs, or apprenticeship programs, students should prefer paid internships. Students should allow room for flexibility in their decision. If the only choice you as a student have is between doing an unpaid internship and doing nothing (or worse still, paying someone to do an internship); then maybe you should consider an unpaid internship if they can afford it. But students should inquire about the work and mentorship that they expect with an organisation before saying yes.

 

While most of the internships nowadays come with a stipend (fixed or performance based), there are still a few internships that are unpaid. A stipend could be a deciding factor for students while choosing an internship but the sole purpose of doing an internship still remains the same that is, polishing existing skills, learning new skills, and validating them with relevant hands-on experience.

 

We often come across stories of students who opt to intern with an NGO or NPO or opt for internship programmes which offers rich learning outcomes. Students who are interested in research and development intern under the guidance of accomplished professors and these internships which might not be a paid opportunities but the learning could be enriching. As a student, you would have to make an informed decision and seek out a meaningful opportunity.

 

Courtesy: Sarvesh Agrawal is the founder and CEO of Internshala – an internship and training platform (internshala.com)