Summer Internship with Google – the story of how hard work is the road to success
About Author: Rupika, a 4th year B.Tech(Computer Science) student at IIT Roorkee interned in the field of Software Engineering with Google India in Bangalore. Her sincere efforts and a few twists in the tale got her the internship in one of world’s renowned organizations.
The story begins much before the internship was offered. I was a student of Pulp and Paper Technology at IIT Roorkee, Saharanpur Campus which I got by virtue of my rank in IITJEE. The first year was full of fun in a small campus where everyone was like family. But at the end of my first year, as a pleasant surprise I came to know that I was the institute’s topper. As a result I got a branch change to Computer Science and Engineering and came to the main campus. As the second year rolled by, I kept working hard in studies and extra-curriculars as well. And then came my third year; the time when everyone was worried about internships and its procedures, the tests and the interviews. We all started brushing our concepts and then came a dream company – GOOGLE.
Everyone was geared up for the tests and the results too. Then came another one of the best surprises of my life that Google took the top 3 department rank student without interviews. I was unable to believe that I had actually travelled a road less travelled by, from Saharanpur to Roorkee to Google. The experience at Google is one worth remembering for the complete lifetime. The culture, freedom, discussions, games, food, outings, and everything with which they treated us was beyond description. I got an extremely nice and supportive mentor who was ready to help me at any odd hour of the day regarding anything, whether be work or personal. I was there with one more of my college mates and the rest of the students from all 5 IITs. As our exams at Roorkee ended late we joined one week later than most of them. Thus it took us a day or two to get acquainted with the rest.
In our first week there was a company outing planned for Bheemeshwari, an amazing camping place near Bangalore. It was an awesome experience there with all the interns playing loads of games among themselves along with the fun and frolic that was organized for all of us by the organizing group. Close to nature, it was my first experience of sleeping in a tent in the middle of a jungle. I still cherish the beautiful moments we spent there. Back to work then, I took some time understanding the working of the internal infrastructure of Google and what work I had to do. My job was to speed-up and enhance a song recommendations engine. Initially I had to modify an existing engine using a technology used widely inside Google to find k-nearest neighbors of given data points. This was the first part of the intern. The second job which I had to do was to build a server that can host requests of displaying the recommended songs, take manual feedback, and store it back for further improvements in recommendations.
The work was fun too; with the manager’s seat beside mine and the project head often getting up from his seat in front of my partition to crack jokes. In the midst of my 10 weeks internship I watched 6 movies, out of which 3 were hosted by Google and I had my first experience of enjoying a Gold Lounge in the multiplex. The fridays were marked by TGIFs(Thank God Its Friday) where we played all sorts of games from shooting to car racing and had fun with applying nail paint and getting caricatures made, followed by two day long weekend. All this fun which we had in the company definitely recharged us to work harder and longer with a fresh mind and approach.
It was because of all these facilities provided to us that throughout our intern we had average working hours of around 12-14 hours per day and that too without any limitations or rules for the time one had to be in the company. We didn’t even think twice before coming and working in the weekends. Thus the company only gained by spending at its employees. We also visited Mysore, Banerghatta Park and did some amazing shopping. I had a chance to make some friends for my lifetime, which was another best part of the intern. In short, my intern was one of the best anyone could imagine in one’s wildest dreams. I thank God and my parents for all their support that led me to such great heights and gave me a chance to work in a company considered best in the field of work and employee treatment.
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