What you could still do if you are not from IIT/NIT

This post is for those students who by choice or by

chance find themselves in colleges which do not enjoy the same brand reputation and

infrastructure that IITs and NITs do and hence feel disadvantaged when it comes to

competing with students from premier institutes for internship and career opportunities.

While it would be foolish to state that college brand does not play a role in deciding your

career path in a country where dowry rates depend on the chip you carry on your

shoulder; my experience of interacting with thousands of students over last 2 years,

suggests that not all hope is lost if you are determined to fight against the odds!

I want to ask you sir, is there any scope for a student like me who is a non-

IITian/NITian, to get internship of my choice. I had gone through almost every

internship of my interest. What they want is previous projects,internships,referees,

recommendations etc. Although those are not mandatory but these stuff is mostly

available to “branded geeks”. No one is willing to consider us.

I am enrolled to a affiliated college, in 2nd year having Electronics & Comm. branch. I

waited for 1 year to become eligible for a few internships, and now think will have to

wait for another 2 years till i am in final year and do some projects and then apply for

those internships. My engineering degree will be a scrap if so happened. I don’t want

just a degree, I want a quality degree.

Why they can’t consider the ”raw(s)”, I need a starter to start the chain reaction. Can

you assist me with some motivation and a few CV/Resume samples of an applicant

having no previous experience and no jewels on academic front but is determined to

grab them.

I often get emails like these from students. I believe answer to Do I still have a shot at

quality internships and career opportunities even if I am not from a reputed college? is

YES and here is how you can do it.

1. Take responsibility for your life: – Yes, may be life served you a raw deal. May be

you did not study hard enough, may be you fell sick on that fateful day of JEE or may be

it was plain bad luck or lack of resources. Truth is you are where you are today and you

have a choice to make. You can either continue to blame the system, the government,

the society, your parents, your teachers, your college, and your neighbor’s dog about

the difficult situation you find yourself in OR you can decide to take control of your life

and do everything possible with in your reach to ensure it gets better from here on. Bad

news is, if YOU don’t decide to do something about your life, nobody else will.

2. Learn outside the classroom: – Poor quality of teachers is one of the biggest

challenges our country faces today and may be your teachers are not as inspiring, as

knowledgeable as you would want them to be. However, in today’s information age, that

are ample learning avenues outside the classroom a few of which are listed below that

you could explore -

1. The thing called internet – Did you know that many of the world’s best universities

(MIT, Stanford, and even IITs now) offer many of their courses online to students all

over the world for free. For those for whom this is a news, try visiting

http://coursera.org or http://nptel.iitm.ac.in/

2. The festivals, not traditional ones – Almost all the IITs have technical festivals

(Shaastra from IIT Madras, Tech Fest from IIT Bombay, Cognizance from IIT Roorkee,

Kshitij from IIT Kharagpur, Techkriti from IIT Kanpur, Tryst from IIT Delhi, and

Techniche from IIT Guwahati) which are great platforms for you to learn, compete and

network with fellow students and professionals in the field. Even if you know nothing,

just go there and you would be amazed how rich experience and knowledge you would

come back with.

3. Remember Eklavya – There can not be a better example than Eklavya in Indian

mythology who was not in a very different situation 5,000 years ago as you are in today.

Did he sit down and waste his time brooding over how unfair the life was? No. Learn by

yourself. Start writing your own programs, building your own projects & models – no

matter however small and insignificant they may seem to others but to you they would

not only provide with practical knowledge but also give you lot of confidence. For

programmers, participating in different online programming contests (CodeChef is a

great place to start) can be a life changing experience.

4. Train: – If all of the above fail to do the trick and you need holding hands to get off the

mark, there are many reputed training programs being offered by companies like IBM,

HP, Microsoft, Cisco etc. that you can join after class hours or during your

winter/summer breaks.

3. Work on your communication skills: - One of the biggest advantages IITs/NITs

offer is they provide you with an environment and peer group where you can learn to

read, write, and speak in English really well. Remember no body would give you an

internship or a job if you can not speak two complete sentences in English without

grammatical, punctuation errors in it or if you can not write in a non SMS language.

Spend time reading quality blogs, newspapers, watch as many English movies and

serials on YouTube as possible (without subtitles please), learn to write a personal diary,

and form a group with friends where its mandatory to converse only in English for an

hour a day. Try this for 6 months and see the marked change in yourself and your

confidence level.

4. Start small, and grow big: - I get really irritated when same students write to me

saying none of the big brands like Google, ITC, McKinsey consider them for

internships. Arre Bhai, when you yourself can’t give up on your obsession with big brand

names; how are these companies at fault when they do the same?Why not start with

smaller, lesser known companies and start ups which are less hung up on brand and

more on whether you are sincere and hardworking. I’d go to the extent to propose that if

nothing else works and you are getting an internship opportunity in a field not of your

choice, you should take it. The amount of practical learning and the network you would

build would eventually come handy in your pursuit of your true passion.

5. Have faith, don’t give up: – Because in the end it will work out just fine; it always

does. Couple of years ago, I also felt that only IITians have the license to rule the world

(being one of them, a part of me still wants to believe that) but over last 2 years I have

been humbled enough number of times by bright students from lesser known colleges to

know that it is not true. I just counted, ~50% of long term interns at Internshala have

come from non premier colleges and we hire ONLY the best; my CEO at previous

company I worked with (Aviva) did his graduation from MES College in Bangalore and

MBA from Bharatidasan Institute of Management; the man behind Telecom revolution in

India, Sam Pitroda, studied in Maharaja Sayajirao University in Vadodra; Dr. A P J Abdul

Kalam distributed newspapers in order to financially contribute to his father’s income

before studying Physics at Saint Joseph’s College, Trichy.

None of these examples are from IITs or NITs and the only common thread is the

determination, perseverance and a burning desire to make a mark for oneself.

Remember, life just begins at college, does not end with it. You still have plenty of time

ahead to make amends; start now