At a glance
College – Systems Science Undergraduate from IIT Jodhpur
Place of work – Frappe Technologies, Mumbai
Process of application – sending an email with resume and cover letter to the team directly
Duration of the internship – 2 months
Stipend – INR 25,000 per month
Kind of work – development of a support bot
In detail
InterFeel (IF): Please tell us something about yourself. Where are you studying currently? What are your hobbies and interests?
Deepshi Garg (DG): Hi!! I am Deepshi Garg, Systems Science Undergraduate from IIT Jodhpur. I love sketching, writing, orating and yes, debating too. Also, I like spending time traveling, and eating spicy and sweet delicacies from all the different origins. Since I am an engineering student, I cater technical interests too. I like coding, both competitive and development, though haven’t done much of it yet, but I do enjoy it.
IF: Tell us something about your internship including stipend, duration and place?
DG: Well, currently I am doing a summer internship in Frappe Technologies, Mumbai. It is a well-established self-funded startup which works towards providing open source ERP Software to clients spanning across 172 countries. My project there is the development of a chatbot based on artificial intelligence. It primarily aims to bring their application ERPNext to the world of personal assistants.
My internship spanned over 2 months from mid of May to mid of July. I was offered a stipend of Rs. 25,000 per month. I would like to highlight here that more than the stipend, what matters is the work environment, which is simply awesome here. The only thing expected is your work output. You may work at your own pace, literally, no time restrictions and no deadlines. The aura is way too comfortable. Work practices are not forced upon; we are given complete freedom of choosing our own way of handling our problem statements. Yes they are definitely did check upon and suggestions were indeed made. All the people here were experienced and had a good knowledge, they were always ready to help you learn.
Duration of the internship – 2 months
Stipend – INR 25,000 per month
Kind of work – development of a support bot
IF: Tell us about the procedure to apply for the internship. Who all are eligible to apply for this internship?
DG: As far as I am aware, anyone who has got sufficient knowledge and interest in coding, and matches interests with the company’s ideologies is qualified to work there. The procedure to apply is quite simple. I just mailed one of their team members with my cover letter and resume. They contacted me back, and then the talks went through.
IF: Let’s talk about how competitive the selection process was. Which qualities helped you to have edge in the selection process? According to you, what were the key things that selectors were looking for?
DG: The selection process was not very competitive. It was primarily resume-based. They liked my profile, I have done quite a few projects based on Operating Systems, which is currently a prime focus of development in this company, thus I believe I suited their requirements perfectly. Then, we had a telephonic interview, a few questions based on the technicals were asked, and later I was told that I was selected.
IF: Which other places had you applied for internship or training. What were the reasons according to you, for not getting selected there?
DG: On campus, I had applied to many companies, and I messed up most of them in final HR interviews by being way too honest about my future plans.What the HR team wants, is complete buttering, being honest is a big no-no.
By exploring the opportunities off campus, I applied in many startups, and other companies like TCS R&D, and got selected in most of them. But decided to finally narrow down the options based upon the project, and hence, landed up here
IF: Could you please highlight the work/research you carried out during your internship period?
DG: I worked on the development of a support bot. It was basically an implementation of artificial neural networks. The main aim of the project was to develop a bot which could answer user queries taking input from the established documentation and database of the discussion forum. I used Python to implement the ANN and JavaScript and AJAX to develop the GUI. Database was maintained in MariaDB.
IF: Can you give us interesting details about your experience – good and bad?
DG: I had plenty of both good and bad experiences. Work was nice, it was a good experience. But one of the most important part of my internship was the city, Mumbai. It gave me hundreds of new things for all the weekends. My stay at IIT-B hostels, the beautiful weather in the city (you know, the Mumbai rains), the vada pav and pav bhaji, beaches and local trains, everything just fell in place perfectly. Internship was like a long vacation.
IF: What impact do you think this internship had on your intellectual capabilities and mindset? In broader terms, what are your gains and takeaways?
DG: Well, this internship gave me a direct insight into how work is done in the industry. The most important thing is that I learnt the difference between the theoretic algorithms and their real world applications. Failures and errors gave the motivation for new innovations and trying out better algorithms. Overall, this was a much needed experience for a better start for full time job.
IF: What are your future plans after this internship and how much impact this internship will have on it?
DG: Yeah, in fact this internship has encouraged me more towards making a career in technical world. My field of work there was artificial intelligence. Now, I am quite aware of what artificial intelligence is, what the recent advancements of this field are. I discovered this field and now, thanks to this internship, I am quite open to working in it.
IF: Lastly, do you have any words of advice or caution for students aspiring for this internship and reading this piece?
DG: As they say, advices shouldn’t be made as the problem is different for everyone. Yet I would just suggest, until and unless you are very clear about your interests, don’t restrict your path, for there may lie an opportunity completely different and exceptionally suiting your interests. AI fascinates me now, you might also discover something new.
We’d like to thank Deepshi for giving an honest interview and wish her all the luck!
