Internship at Avanti – My quest for a learning-packed summer
About the Author: Bhushan Anirudha Narkhede from National Institute of Technology, Karnataka, gives insightful details about his internship at Avanti.
Having heard about the internship experiences of my seniors, I was pondering over how to bag an internship. I was worried that my summer would be wasted if I didn’t find a meaningful internship to add to my experience. I was a member of Avanti fellows in my college where I met some seniors who told me about internships at Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya (JNV). The hired interns had to stay at JNV and mentor students there. I liked the opportunity and decided to intern there. A few days later, a friend of mine introduced me to Internshala; I logged into it and searched ‘Avanti’. It resulted in an internship post for curriculum associate at Avanti Learning Centres in Mumbai. On enquiring about it, I found out that the organisation managed Avanti fellows and the internship required designing content for JEE. I applied for it by answering some basic questions asked in the application.
After few days, I received a call from Avanti Learning Centres regarding the selection process they followed. Having applied for Maths, I had to take an online test containing multiple choice questions based on the syllabus of JEE. I was busy with the preparation of my sister’s marriage due to which I couldn’t get any time for brushing up my concepts. I took the test and got busy again. Three days later, I was informed of my selection for the second round which was an assignment. The assignment was divided into two parts. The first part involved 5 questions with solutions. I was to identify and resolve grammatical and conceptual errors in them. The second part involved framing 3 questions on one of the three topics provided and classifying the questions as easy, medium, and hard. I framed questions on straight lines and submitted it. I cleared this round as well and was up for a Skype interview. I dressed up in a formal attire and appeared for the interview. The interviewer asked me for a brief introduction and my hobbies, which was quite expected. He asked me why I had selected Maths. I told him that I was interested in Mathematics and problem-solving adding that I was pursuing engineering for the same reason. He counter-questioned me asking why I hadn’t chosen B.Sc Maths then. I replied satisfactorily and cited my academic achievements as an answer to his next question. After a long wait of 20 days, I got a call and the person on the other end of the line said, ‘Congratulations, you are hired for the internship!’ Delightedly, I informed my mom and ran to my friend who had also applied for this internship; I was glad to know that he had been selected too. The organisation sent our offer letters and asked us to join them after our semester exams.
We started planning for our internship. The first question was where to stay but it was solved as soon as we talked to our senior form Avanti. He told us that we could stay with him. We reached Mumbai, the city of dreams, and settled there. Travelling by Mumbai local for the first time was a whole new experience for me. I reached the office and met with my fellow interns. Our orientation began with an introductory session followed by the company profile – its history, what it does, etc. We had some fun activities like preparing life maps giving it a complete flashback of my life, designing fun inclusive educational activities, etc. Then they informed us about the work schedule which was 8 hours a day.
My job was to create Scafolds which are flowcharts that include the procedure for attempting a question, frame questions and their solutions for various topics of mathematics for grade 11. The syllabus was divided among five interns; I was assigned Straight lines, Inequalities and inequations, and Sequence and series. We had weekly targets. We referred to various reference books so as to include every model and concept in the questions and scafolds. We were also welcomed to gain insights on any firm of the enterprise.
Since it was my first time in Mumbai, I wanted to make the most of it. I made sure that I did something fun every weekend. I visited all the major tourist spots in Mumbai and visited Pune to see an IPL match. During my internship, I developed my communication skills and personality along with learning a lot of interesting things from my coworkers. Also, I got a chance to experience how corporates function.
Do you also want to make your summer productive? Check out these cool content development internships.
Editor’s note – If you also have an interesting story to share, you can now participate in Your Internship Story Contest 2017 and win cash prizes and goodies worth INR 1 Lac!
