My first internship ‘stipend’ had ‘spend’ written all over it!
Name: – Sam
College: — TAPMI
Dream organization for internship: – National Geographic
How did I spend my 1st internship stipend?
It was by a pure stroke of luck that I stumbled upon this competition just a day after I got my first stipend. Earning my first stipend was a strange feeling for me, maybe stranger than usual because I have already worked and earned a proper salary; but as a student working as an intern, this was my first.
My friends did get the thought of sending across the whole sum, untouched, across to their parents, but noble though the thought was, I abandoned it, seeing that:
1- I had already done something similar with my first salary
2- I wasn’t using their money to sustain myself anymore.
My first stipend had a share of both joy and disappointment.
Joy, because i had a chilled-out time, had fun (not just with friends, old and new) but even at work. I liked the work, I liked the fact that I was doing the ground work, the absolute nitty-gritty of something that will have very tangible outcomes in terms of revenue for the organization. Coming down in formals, toting my laptop and randomly wishing people good morning and good day! Ha! Corporate conformism, how I hated it and took pride in enacting it!
Like a friend pointed out, ‘stipend’ has ‘spend’ written all over it. I spent some of it on mundane requirements like my PG accommodation and the phone bill (I had ended up snagging a girlfriend in the middle of this process, thus :( ), some of the money went to the food guy, and quite a significant proportion in the nearest bar,drinking away mugs after mugs of beer (with similarly endowed friends of course) with the fantastic concept called ‘happy hours’ that let you have 10 mugs of beer for Rs.300). :) :)
I owed a treat to a friend who lent me his bike at ‘crucial’ times (read , picking up aforementioned girl or avoiding being horrendously late). I settled that debt. And an unspoken debt (treat) to a guy with whom I had crashed for a while, as I looked for suitable accommodation. Settled. The ‘girlfriend bit’ too, did sap a quite a few quid out of the meagre sum-total, but hey, what the hell! ;)
Disappointment because the offer letter quoted a certain sum, but the HR Manager gave some gyaan about policy and regulations and gave out a desultory final sum. Being an intern I didn’t really try to raise a row or rock the boat because, after all, we still need them to come down the next year and hire our juniors as well, right? :)
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