Rajiv is sophomore of IIT XYZ. He has a CPI which is considered decent in his college. Last few months at his college have been the happiest months of his life. He has made new friends, found a new freedom and a lot of exposure to the outside world. He is eagerly waiting for the mid semester break to end.
Sunday, March 8. On his return, Rajiv is surprised to find that his friends, Rajat and Prakash had stayed back during the holidays to work on a project under their Professors. In the following weekend, while all of them were busy preparing for a surprise quiz scheduled for Monday, Rajat tells them that there is a popular lecture on ‘Future Jobs for Engineers’ on Monday.
Monday. While Rajiv was stuffing his plate with cutlets after the popular lecture, a lot of questions and ideas about projects, internships etc continued to occupy his mind. In the following week, Rajiv observed his surroundings with an altogether new perspective. To his amazement, five of his friends other than Rajat had involved themselves in various projects; Ashima was made the convener of the college cultural festival; the most gargantuan shock was that Dhev had been selected for a summer internship in a startup company in San Francisco.
Rajiv had also done a project in February, but all his classmates had also done the same project as it was a course project. He had served as a member of the Sponsorship committee of their college technical summit.
“Are you doing an intern this summer? Rajiv asked Rajat in their usual post dinner conversation on their way back to hostel “Yeah I’ve got one through a personal contact”, Rajat replied. ”Why? I mean is it necessary?” Rajiv asked. “Well, a lot of students are doing it. It gives you a good work experience and also looks good on your resume’. I wish I could get an intern outside India.”
Rajiv continued to be engaged in such discussions with his other friends, seniors and some professors. With the onset of April, his mind had some concrete answers like projects give a practical feel of what you study but they should be only done if one has interest in it. Also, he learnt that an internship must ensure learning and work experience and not necessarily a foreign trip. Quizzes, lab tests and end sems filled the rest of April.
May. Rajiv has returned home and has updated his Facebook profile to working at Gail India Pvt. Ltd., an internship, which he got through a personal contact. Rajiv is half of an engineer now and has been participating in discussions on his career plans with his friends and family. The placements at his college were over by now and the statistics were as follows.
Many of his seniors had opted for jobs, some of which were in marketing and the management sector, many were entirely based on computer skills and the rest were core engineering jobs. Also, around 30-40 students had joined coaching institutes like TIME, Endeavor but only those with exemplary percentiles could make to the top few IIMs.
A few students had phenomenal GRE scores and opted for higher studies in foreign universities. Almost all of them had done path breaking research work and even published research papers while in college or during their internships.
A lot of questions, confusions and solutions continued to pierce his mind for the rest of summer.
July 2nd. Rajiv is enjoying a trip to Goa with his family. Only a few weeks are left before the 5th semester begins. He aims to appear for GRE for which he should start the preparation now, like many of his friends. A lot of questions still occupy his mind. Did he have a chance of getting a decent placement in a reputed company? His present decision might decide his future. It might not. Perhaps, one big question also arises in his mind along with many others, “After completing half of his engineering, does he really wants to be an engineer?”
