- Manish Mehta(2020)
It’s Boards. This is the most important exam in your life. Study hard.
Its 12th, JEE Mains, JEE Advanced. Ab insti aagaye ab life chill hai :) Then come Midsem, Endsem, Minor, electives, projects, PoR, intern. How many times have we heard “Bas ye karlo sab chill hai aage”. How long have we been waiting for the ‘chill’? Or did the ‘chill’ really begin a long time ago and we never realized that cause we were so focused on the goal? And what even is the goal? To earn millions of dollars? To become the happiest person? To become successful? Enough with the cliche talk. Time for real shit :P
I’m Manish, a 4th-year chemical undergraduate. My intern experience? Average (One of the many catastrophes of covid-19) Why am I still writing this? To share the journey, the efforts, the ups & downs had to face and the lessons that I learned.
Selection Procedure & Pre-Internship Phase
Let’s begin at the time when I started applying for companies. I was so confident about my interest in core that I didn’t even apply for companies other than core and some coding. I remember my HuL GD. I was so confused on reading the 1-page topic and sitting in a group of 10 scared me more. I spoke only once on some random point, made some amateur mistakes and as you expect did horribly. Of course, at that point I didn’t realize what I did wrong and blamed my luck. Then came Piramal GD and again, I sucked. Only this time, I had a friend in the group honest enough to tell me my mistakes and then it hit me. I prepped hard after that, watched a lot of YT videos, jotted down the important headers to keep in mind, the common phrases to use, and the mistakes not to make for my next GD by DRL and here comes flash point. But before that, how did I get here? Well after giving like a million coding tests for finance and analytics companies and performing poorly in all, appeared in apti + core + psychometric test for DRL and fared well in that.
Then comes GD. From what I gathered from seniors, DRL had always conducted a core-based GD so that was a relief but no matter how much I prepared, it scared the shit out of me just thinking of the things that could possibly go wrong. The topic was described briefly on 2 sides. Didn’t start or conclude but said important points in between, was calm and collected during, and that’s what got me selected.
Seeing my name on the interview shortlist was one of the happiest moments in my life. Not because I was shortlisted for DRL but because through hard work and the right preparation and practice, once again in my life I had conquered one of my fears. Skipping ahead to the interview, I was so damn confident about it that I knew I would ace it. It began with the usual ‘Tell me about yourself’ and I mentioned only those things that would steer the interview exactly where I wanted it to head. She then asked me about my AZeotropy PoR and my project. Surprisingly I didn’t remember what my project was xD. The look on my face was priceless! I thought that this was the end, maybe I shouldn’t have been so overconfident that I forgot my own project. But to my surprise, the interviewer herself read the first line of my project from the resume and I said to myself, “Damn, good timing God” xD. Well after that I aced it and from the look on her face, I knew I would get selected and I did!
Oops, I missed something……. I had an Oyo interview (Data science profile) the exact same day before my DRL interview! That interview too went very well, I answered all the coding and probability stats questions the interviewer asked me and some other questions as well (my passion for gaming and how I overcame my addiction :P). He was an IIT B alumnus so he could relate and told me about his experiences as well. Then there was the final question. What do you want to do? Where do you see yourself working years from now? I was so confused, didn’t know what to answer as I had prepped for all HR questions except this! I stayed silent for a minute. Thought to myself that this is the deciding moment and gathering all the courage left, I said that I have an interest in studying data analytics but I want to work in a chemical industry, one where I could gain practical knowledge working on the site and simultaneously work on a RnD project, preferably simulation and coding based. That’s it. I messed it up as I first thought…. but did I? The interviewer appreciated me for my honesty, wished me luck in my future endeavors and also, I finally knew what I wanted! Yeah, I know, sounds stupid and took this long! Well after that I got selected at DRL and was happy as finally the ‘intern lag jaye yaar’ was over.
My Intern Experience
The more the pandemic bloomed, the worse my fear got for my intern getting cancelled. But I was grateful that DRL planned a work from home intern for us. The first two days, we had 9 hrs. long induction session each day to get us acquainted with the industry and the online interface. As boring as I predicted it to be, it was the exact opposite. The sessions were very informative and I learned a lot about the pharma industry which further strengthened my interest for core. After that, projects and mentors were allotted. The project was decent considering everything. My job was to go through existing research work on the internet and mine for solutions for some problems faced in the development of a particular generic product. I reported my findings to my mentor and got continuous feedback on what to do next. The mentors were very helpful and we connected at least once every week. Apart from all of this, DRL biweekly conducted a competition for all the interns. One was to post a video of us doing an exercise every day and the winner gets to do the exercise with the CEO :P. Other competitions were technical and one was based on business development. All in all, these 6 weeks were a lot of learning and fun and I enjoyed every bit of it!
My advice? Doesn’t matter where you do your intern or how big the stipend is or intern kab lagi, what matters is the level of preparation you did, the struggles you faced, the things you learned, the experience you gained and the conclusions you came to! Sayonara!!