Internship at IIM Kozhikode – How Devesh found an alternate career path
About the Author: Devesh Gaurav, a student of National Institute of Foundry and Forge Technology, shares insightful details of his internship at IIM Kozhikode and how it helped him realize that he could pursue a career in research.
I’m doing Bachelors in Manufacturing Engineering. At the end of my sophomore year, I interned at Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode. In those 2 months, I had the best time of my life. In the campus, you can feel the beauty of Kerala (God’s Own Country). The campus gives you a ravishing view of coconut trees, clouds, and mountains. The awesome weather conditions and the lightning-fast download speed were enough to get me hooked to the campus. The local Keralite people were also very helpful.
How I got it?
Well, the biggest concern after the commencement of one’s sophomore year is to get a good internship for the next summer, and this concern reaches its pinnacle when your close ones’ bag internship offers and you remain empty handed. I was going through the same phase, searching for good internships. In my sophomore year, I was looking for fields of my interest and found some areas of “Industrial engineering” interesting. As these areas didn’t involve core engineering knowledge and their propensity was more towards management area, I decided to try my luck in those fields. I had started applying late and by then most of the professor had already accepted interns under them. So there were limited chances of getting a foreign internship, but I decided to give it a shot. I had three positive responses from some good universities in Ireland and Canada, but none were backed with financial assistance, and so I had to skip the plans of going abroad. I shifted my focus to good Indian universities.
Initially, I didn’t get any positive response from professors but had to wait for 65 odd days! On the auspicious occasion of Holi, I got a call from a professor and he confirmed my application for 2 months internship under his guidance and told me to complete the necessary formalities within two days. In next 10 days, I got confirmations from two other institutes too (IITD and SPJIMR), but I decided to go forward with IIMK. One thing is for sure – you have to be patient throughout the process. All three offers I got were from personal emailing efforts, and I had to perform some time-bound tasks given by respective professors.
The Project given to me was on “Study of Online Shopping & its Return Management.” I had to study various customizations that the e-commerce giants implemented on their websites like scarcity heuristic effect, management of various stages between ordering and delivering of products, return management, customers’ online behavior and preferences, e-retailers’ offering and strategies etc. I reviewed various blogs, newspaper articles, and feedback comments written by a large group of customers on different public forums and identified major critical gaps existing in online shopping. My work also focused on reverse supply chain processes in e-retailing for which I reviewed “Return Policy” of various major e-retailers operating in India and other parts of the world and tried to find optimal return management strategy.
My first interaction with my professor was really great that lasted for almost an hour. We talked on various issues pertaining to e-commerce (my project), and I believe that interaction made me very comfortable with him. I was always punctual while reporting to him for which he even appreciated me. Coming to the fun part, I really loved exploring the city. There were few places of my interest where I went more often than the others, the Kappad beach being the prominent one. We also went to Wayanad (2 hours from Kozhikode) and a nearby waterfall. You’ll find a wide variety of delicacies if you are a non-vegetarian, but for veggies the choices are limited. As I was a big time Momo lover, I used to go all alone 25kms away from the campus for having city’s best Momos.
Lastly, I would like to add that after this internship, I realized that research is something that I can pursue as a career. I’m really grateful for undergoing this internship. I believe, internships give you an opportunity to evaluate yourself by keeping you in a particular field for 2-3 months. For grabbing a good internship you have to be energetic, vibrant, strong in the subject you are applying in, but above all, you need to be patient throughout the process.
Interested in market research or awed by the beauty of God’s own country? Check out these cool business research internships and internships in Kerala.
