Day Two of the Summer Internship talks organised by the Student Academic Cell (SAC) focused on the fields of IT, Supply Chain, and Data Analytics. The speakers, currently pursuing internships at various companies, comprised Vaibhav Agarwal–Software Development intern at Arcesium, Sanskar Jhajharia–Software Development intern at DE Shaw, Sanskriti Jindal–Data Analyst and Risk Management intern at Wells Fargo, and Yuvam Kulkarni–Supply Chain intern at Hindustan Unilever.
IT:
Vaibhav and Sanskar started the panel discussion by addressing some common misconceptions students have about the placement season. They informed the audience that the internship season begins roughly around September and goes on till mid-November, with a few companies recruiting in the second semester as well. Depending on the stipends offered and the associations with the institute, the companies are categorised as Day Zero, Day One, and Day Two. Day Zero covered the first two to three days, Day One covered the following seven to ten days, and Day Two covered the following few weeks. In terms of preparation, Vaibhav advised studying at least one programming language, with C++, Java, and Python being popular options. Interviewbit was suggested for those who wanted to learn Data Structures and Algorithms (DSA) from scratch. Participating in coding contests from Leetcode, Codeforces, and Codechef was advised to hone one’s skills.
Vaibhav elaborated on the subjects that candidates are supposed to be well-versed with. For non-CS branches, studying DSA and Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) was considered mandatory. Sanskar and Vaibhav recommended a good understanding of all OOP concepts and its differences from other programming paradigms, a decent grasp of Java, multithreading and dynamic polymorphism, and design patterns. Helpful resources for this include HeadFirsts books, Java handbooks, BITS slides, and talking to the seniors about their past interview experiences. Under Database Structures (DBS), writing basic predicates and propositions might be expected from the students.
Talking about the application process, Sanskar explained that it was fairly straightforward and the Placement Unit (PU) was quite helpful in this regard. The responsibility of students would be to prepare a good resume and get the resume screened multiple times by seniors to avoid errors and add important information. He encouraged the students to maintain their composure and retain the fundamentals of coding—both theoretical and practical—at their fingertips, as multiple interviews can take place on the same day. He also recommended going through the company’s interview experiences available on GeeksforGeeks (GFG) as soon as one is shortlisted for that specific company.
Supply Chain:
Yuvam Kulkarni, a Supply Chain intern at Hindustan Unilever (HUL), talked about the Unilever Leadership Internship Programme (ULIP). He mentioned that the company offers internships under two major roles—Supply Chain and Research and Development (R&D). Students of Mechanical Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Manufacturing Engineering, and the different Electronics Engineering branches were all eligible for ULIP. However, only the students of Chemical Engineering were considered for R&D roles. The stipend was an estimated 1.5 lakhs per month for the eight week internship
The interview process consisted of three major steps, beginning with the resume shortlist. This involved filling a Google form with the required information mentioned on one’s superset resume. According to Yuvam, CGPA was an essential part of the selection, and a CGPA of 7.5 or higher was considered to be safe. He mentioned that the candidate’s projects, internships, and Practice School-1 (PS-I) also play a pivotal role in the selection process. Positions of responsibility (PORs) in technical teams, clubs, or associations were highly beneficial, but not necessary, and could be compensated with better projects. The next stage is the case assessment stage involving an automated HireVue interview. It consists of three logical reasoning questions on supply chain management to be answered in five minutes each. The final stage is a 30 minute interview, which entails questioning on courses, projects and PORs mentioned in one’s resume. Yuvam encouraged the students to be ready for any type of queries because this stage included both a technical and Human Resources (HR) component.
Yuvam elaborated on his experience working for HUL, saying that the company recruits individuals who can work as management trainees for 1.5 years before joining the company as engineering managers. This position involved both technical and managerial aspects of work, which was predominantly onsite.
Data Analytics:
The final speaker was Sankriti Jindal, who provided everyone with an overview of Data Analytics internships. She explained that Data Analytics could be an excellent starting point for students who wished to advance into the fields of management and consultancy. This would be a good opportunity for students looking to enter into the management side of the workforce after graduating from a technical institution. Wells Fargo and Accenture were the two major companies for on-campus internships in this domain, while some students also applied for off-campus internships at Amazon and IBM.
Sanskriti described how a Machine Learning (ML) foundation was necessary for studying Data Analytics and could be attained through introductory courses by Andrew Ng, Krish Naik, and Jovian. Developing personal projects in data science was a great way to build on one’s learning and use it in a real-world context, she added. She also recommended taking remote projects under professors outside BITS to gain experience.
Proceeding to the selection process, she said that it consisted of an online assessment which was a combination of a psychometric test and coding problems. Probability, statistics, logical reasoning, and aptitude were tested and were easy to ace according to past applicants. However, since most people had difficulty in the coding section of the selection process, Sanskriti recommended building a stronger base in coding, especially being thorough with the Pandas and NumPy libraries. The next stage in the selection process was resume shortlisting, and Sanskriti mentioned that any CGPA above seven was safe and made no difference in the selection process for Wells Fargo and Accenture. She recommended going through the job descriptions provided. The final stage would be the interviews, generally two, ranging from 45 minutes to an hour in by various companies and highlighting the important keywords mentioned in one’s own resume. They usually consist of questions on the courses and projects one has mentioned in their resume, both theoretical and practical. Interviewers may also try to confuse the students by asking difficult questions, but Sanskriti explained that these are meant to observe one’s approach to problem solving and students don’t necessarily have to succeed in solving them.
She then discussed her time at her Bangalore-based Wells Fargo internship, where she mostly handled finance based projects involving corporate risk evaluation. All interns were provided with “buddies” and mentors to guide them through the process. The timeline followed in the internship was roughly two weeks of training, followed by standard work. There are mid-term and final evaluations to grade their contribution and the models they worked upon. Sanskriti wrapped up her segment by advising the students to take their internships seriously. Studying subjects and applying them in real life are vastly different, and she believed that internships served the purpose of bridging this gap.
The speakers concluded by discussing how their individual internship experiences had shaped them professionally and provided them with an understanding of the corporate world. An offline internship also offered the chance to experience a new environment and learn how to adapt and overcome challenges.
This was followed by a quick Q&A session where the speakers cleared some common doubts and misconceptions students had about internships and specific fields, after which the panel discussion came to an end.