Summer Internship with Schlumberger – Praveen Kumar from NITIE Mumbai
Also Daily Winner for: – 11th August 2011
Name of the intern: – Praveen S
Institute: – NITIE, Mumbai
Organization interned with: – Schlumberger
Imagine being asked this question as soon as you enter the Interview room. ‘You are a fresher and your engineering branch is in no way related to the field of work that we do; I’ll give you one minute, convince us on why we should take you” . My morning coffee came to my help and I conjured up an answer that satisfied all the panelists. After this I was a bit worried about having to intern in an organization that is so work centered and to the point. Little did I know what was in store for me.
I started my Internship at Schlumberger during one of the hottest summers Mumbai has seen. In my head , I pictured the office to be grand and intimidating but I was in for a mild shock when I reached there. It was just like my college , warm , cozy but efficient. For the first two days I was dressed in formals and my guide was on vacation. I was done with all the formalities by the time my guide arrived I was ready to start the grueling internship. My guide was the exact opposite of what I had pictured him in my head. He was a young south Indian who had just gotten married. He followed one simple rule ‘Keep it simple ‘ . For the first three hours we never got to discussing about the project. We got to know each other and after he had made me comfortable, he explained the project and I was pretty excited because this was the first time I was actually ‘Working’.
I was given the option of working from home a couple of days in a week and I took it. So I had to go to the office for three days a week for inputs, outputs and reviews. Also I was allowed to wear anything I wanted to the office. After all the initial euphoria calmed down I observed finer things. All the staff ranging from the cleaning staff to the CEO had the same food and at the same place which I thought was pretty cool. Also there was no attendance register tracking your arrival and departure. You could come If you felt like working and leave when you got bored. At the end of the day you had to get the job done. How easy and simple ! I had all these images in my head before the internship started about how I would be made to work fourteen hours a day and how I would hate it but none of that actually happened. The general mood of the office was happy and relaxed everyone made me feel like an insider.
Everything just flowed at a smooth pace when suddenly one day my guide announced to me ‘Let’s present this to the CEO ‘ and within a matter of fifteen minutes I was presenting my idea to the CEO and he just nodded and smiled all along. Honestly, I thought he was just being nice and didn’t really care what I did but as soon as I finished , he spoke for around 40 minutes with such insightful views and ideas and I swear I am not someone who gets impressed easily but that guy looked like a rock star out there.
I completed my project a week early and left for home only to realize in a couple of days that I actually missed going to office and having those coffees.
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