The Search Ends

After some amount of procrastination, I finally decided to put some of my random thoughts into a structured blog post.

It has been a hectic semester searching for and finalizing internships. After quiet a bit of fight, I will have to settle with Finland. Casting away thoughts of posting a laconic A?! on Facebook as my status message, I think it would be more satisfying going through the whole process step by step and looking at some of the ups and downs I had.

August-September ’10

Internship season begins. After the initial jitters, ITC finally comes to campus. I get my first experience of a real GD. Not to be remembered, I must admit. I had hardly learnt from experiences last year.

September-November ’10

I never thought getting internships could be this hard. ITC selected 8 from the whole batch. Deutsche Bank selected one from the 3rd years. Schlumberger was my best bet. Made it to the interview stage after a somewhat arbitrary GD (Topic was “Rolling & Stones”).

Interview was even more arbit. Here is a sample:

I: Do you drink?

Me: (Brief Pause) No.

I: Do you listen to rock music?

Me: Yes.

I: Which is your favourite band?

Me: Pink Floyd.

I: You don’t drink and listen to Pink Floyd?! Don’t fib! (Laughs)

Me: (Sheepish smile & an awkward silence)

Although everybody described their interviews as good. I knew the moment the interview ended that I had a very slim chance of making it through.

December-January ’10

Companies coming to the campus had started to dry up. Even those that came didn’t sound very attractive. I started to forget about the internship and concentrate on other things.

SF came and went. I made it to the final 6 teams on 2 occasions in a marked improvement over last year’s performance. Some of the keywords that stood out were Suppandi, The Tipping Point and Scrabble!! (That is an in-joke!)

February-March ’10

Finally, internship gets finalized in Finland. I was pretty excited but institute rules and regulations regarding foreign internships somewhat dampened the atmosphere. Couldn’t really define the exact moment when I got the internship. But, I guess I’m pretty satisfied about it. And more than anything else, the work there sounds quiet interesting.

Had my first taste of an inter-hall event in March when I got a bronze in Whats the Good Word. Keywords were Poltu and Farziaap. More about it in the next post. Cheers!!

PS: On a somewhat unrelated note, I love Asok, the intern