‘Summer Internship – A waste of time?’ by Prof. Arindam Lahiri, Executive Director, Indus World School of Business



Does summer internship really contribute substantially to the learning process of a business management graduate?

There are arguments on both sides and both views can be logical. Before we delve into this, let us take a look at the process of management education. During the first year of the usual 2-year MBA programme, a student is exposed to the various functions of an organization. This prepares the student for the foundations of management theory. However, management education in hardly academic in nature – it has a strong focus on applying the same in real life situation and this transition is difficult.

My own view is that the summer internship provides you with the best opportunity to attempt at making this transition. And most students fail while making this transition, as this is the first time that most of them are attempting such a transition. Yes, even for the students having pre-programme work experience – since it is the first time that they will attempt to put management theory (which most of them are not aware of, except for undergraduate management students) into practice.

It is this failure that raises a question mark over the entire practice of summer internship. And most students do not fail only once at this summer internship. They fail a number of times subsequently in their first job. This also raises another issue about a large percentage of management graduates leaving their first job within the first 12 months – we will not get into this here.

Learning through failure is an important pedagogical tool. A summer internship allows student to get frustrated and underscores the challenge of application of management theories in practice. Such an exposure, if absorbed internally in a constructive manner, can be one of the most important learning for the student. The student, with the help from his faculty members, must analyze the challenges of application and failure points. Understanding the constraints and parameters within which various theoretical constructs are applied is important. And without repeated practice, this is difficult to achieve.

However, once word of caution at this point, one must be careful about internships where the student is completely left on his own and not challenged to deliver. In such a case, opportunities to fail, is minimal. Though the internship experience may be comfortable, the learning may be incomplete.

Using the opportunity of summer internship to understand how organizations work, especially how people in the organizations behave, is a must learn for all management students. It also helps the students to establish some useful networking relations. At the same time, it allows the student to gain self-confidence by comparing his own efforts with other existing employees in the organization. It helps a student identify his strength and weakness for effective working in the organization.

A summer internship may add more value to people who have worked for less than 2 years with an organization. The challenge in most cases, result from expectation mismatch of the student and the organization. The core objective is that the need for summer internship is of the student and not necessarily a need of the organization. The onus is on the student to make the most out of this opportunity.

A summer internship has been a life-changing experience for a large number of students (and these students are not necessarily the students with pre-placement offers from organizations). It impacts the choice of organization, functions and the pace of career growth of an individual.

‘National Training Workshop on Personality Development’ at IWSB.

Indus World School of Business (IWSB), Greater Noida conducted a Two-Day National Training Workshop on Personality Development from 20-21^st October 2010. Peoples from all works of life like students, Library professionals, and academician attended the workshop. Around 75 people attended the workshop. In the Inaugural Session Chief guest Dr. Janardhan Jha kicked off the workshop by lightning the lamp along with Satya Narayanan R who is the founder and chairman of IWSB, Executive Director Arindam Lahiri IWSB and Dr. Rajesh Kumar. Janardan Jha, who is presently Director, Amity center for innovation and New Concept, Amity University Noida Uttar Pradesh also shared some words of wisdom. Dr. Rajesh Kumar, Organizing Secretary gave the introductory remarks. The first Speaker on the first day was Dr. Rakesh Kumar Bhatt. Dr. R.K Bhatt who is presently serving as Associate Professor and Head, Department of Library and Information Science, University of Delhi touched on the key points of the Personality such as Interpersonal Skills, Communication Skills, Basic Etiquettes, Body Language, Time Management, Stress Management etc. After that Sreenivasan Ramakrishnan, Co-Founder IWSB and Career Launcher took the session. This was mostly an interactive session, where he used many tools to help the participants understand more about their personality. Like how ambitious one is? How much growth oriented one is? and many more such traits about one’s personality. Overall the main motive was to get a clear picture of one’s personality and where all is the scope of improvement lies. Prof. Arindam Lahiri took the next session. His topic was the Locus of control. This session also used loco inventory tools to give a clear picture of one’s locus of control. The second day started with Dr. C.V Ramanan’s session. Dr. Ramanan is the Director at National Academy for Training and Development, ISTD. He shared with the participants the unique concept of Total Quality Person (TQP) and how one can be a Total Quality Person. The session was full of very interesting and fabulous stories. It was really a very enlightening session and the end of which Dr. Ramanan also shared how one can achieve what one want to in his life. Dr. Jaideep Sharma who is Associate Professor Social Sciences, IGNOU, conducted the last session. He concentrated on the topic of competency mapping of professionals. He mentioned about three key attributes knowledge, skills and attitude. These three play a key role in an individual’s efficiency and his competency mapping. The two-day workshop ended by Prof. Arindam Lahiri’s Valedictory remarks. Dr. Rajesh Kumar delivered a vote of thanks. Overall the workshop was a grand success.