Non-Core Session
Non-Core Session
The session began with Nitish Faterperkar, a 4th year undergraduate EP Dual degree student. He shared his work experiences while working on a social project in the rural village of Anandhwan, Maharashtra. Nitish has always been motivated to pursue social causes and has successfully explored, and continues to explore the world of social work that makes a difference in the lives of many. He describes this project as an effort to assess the impact of solar panels installed in the village. Solar panels, he describes, are an effective solution to the erratic electricity supply that this rural sector has observed in the past. Besides making the village self-sufficient in its energy demand, this project, helps to set up a precedent of affordable engineering solutions in a rural environment. Besides the aforementioned, his experience also pertained to improving computer literacy in the women of the village. He mentioned that this inclination of working in the social sector first developed when he started teaching under-privileged children as a part of Abhyasika, IITB. Seeing such a positive impact, he seeks to pursue this stream of non-core opportunities in the future as well. For more details contact Nitish at his email address: nitishfatarpekar@gmail.com
Following next was Kumar Ayush from 4th year of the B.Tech program in EP. Ayush elaborates the similarities and differences between corporate and (PhD) research oriented jobs. He correctly points out while many in academia may tend to dissuade you from pursuing a cooperate careers by citing issues like office politics, deadline tensions and lack of time-flexibility, these issues are not exclusive to the corporate sector and are often observed in research jobs as well. In fact, the element of it being a 9-to-5 job is common to both the profiles. He advises that you should know yourself and should understand your nature to make an informed decision about choosing either the corporate life or the one of academia. That said, he cited many ways in which he prepared his profile for corporate roles. He strongly recommends aspirants to prepare in groups and share ideas together. The usual trend of lending help to or being lent help from a student applying for a variant non-core job is not the most helpful as it often limits you to yourself. Additionally, he advices to not be competitive with your friends when preparing together as it curtails your own learnings in the process. Ayush looks forward to joining Goldman Sachs. For more details, kindly contact Ayush at his email address, cheekujodhpur@gmail.
Jay Prakash in his 4th year of B.Tech program in EP was the next speaker. He wants to pursue a career inclined towards engineering and while work closely around physics. This kind of a non-core excursion meant for him to be au fait with EE. A minor in EE certainly helped him with that, as well as gathering practical knowledge through laboratory courses and summer projects (in EE). His internship at Siemens, RDA required a wide set of skills like Analytics, Simulation (COMSOL), Modelling and Signal Processing. He mentions that the selection interview for the same involved questions from power electronics, signals and systems etc. and other technical questions based on his past project work in EE. Overall, he mentions, that being from an EP background certainly added to the uniqueness of his candidature however, his past exposure to EE did help him as well. Jay looks forward to joining into industry after having witness such a positive experience at Siemens before.
Jay Prakash in his 4th year of B.Tech program in EP was the next speaker. He wants to pursue a career inclined towards engineering and while work closely around physics. This kind of a non-core excursion meant for him to be au fait with EE. A minor in EE certainly helped him with that, as well as gathering practical knowledge through laboratory courses and summer projects (in EE). His internship at Siemens, RDA required a wide set of skills like Analytics, Simulation (COMSOL), Modelling and Signal Processing. He mentions that the selection interview for the same involved questions from power electronics, signals and systems etc. and other technical questions based on his past project work in EE. Overall, he mentions, that being from an EP background certainly added to the uniqueness of his candidature however, his past exposure to EE did help him as well. Jay looks forward to joining into industry after having witness such a positive experience at Siemens before.
Anuj Shetty, a 4th year B.Tech undergraduate student from EP shares his experience as person who took up both core and non-core internships and then finally decided to pursue the latter field. He first exposure in non-core was in his 1st year internship after which he also wen t to the University of Luxemburg on a core internship with dealt with Computational Physics. Having an inclination towards coding and mathematics, he ultimately decided to go for Analytics in Goldman Sachs as his placement. One of main advices he stressed on was to not be afraid to contact seniors and get a clear idea of what the non-core field is about. He began with describing the 5 basic sub-sections of jobs under the non-core field: Consulting, FMCG, Analytics, Finance and Coding/Software. All of them have different preparation methods and it is a good idea to appreciate that different early on. For example, Consulting jobs may require you to have good soft skills as well as coding skills but Coding ones only need the later. In consulting, you are approached by clients with certain problems pertaining to their business model. You are expected to provide solutions to them and communicate that through presentations etc. Needless to say, you end up making many contacts and establish strong networks with company officials. Top companies include AT Kearney, Boston Consulting group and Bain and Co etc. Line of work like in Analytics and Coding require you to have good computation and mathematics understanding. He mentions that being part of EP definitely helped him with mathematics. He advises that your resume that you send must be short and succinct. Selections here are made through shortlisting (based on resume and CPI), then group discussions and then a final interview. For Finance, he suggests, reading the Economic Times and the book “A Practical Guide to Quantitative Finance Interviews” by Xianjing Zhou. For more details contact Anuj at his email anujshetty248@gmail.com.
Our last speaker was an EP B.Tech graduate, Asmit Jain who has had a year of experience working for Citibank, Mumbai. He mentions he gets clients to whom his team sells financial products while hedging their risks. Asmit stood out amongst all the other speakers as he chose to apply for internships and his final placement externally and not to the placement cell. He mentions that what helped him specifically, while applying externally, was the fact that he was a IIT student in the pool of non-IITian applicant. He recommends sophomores to not be restricted to the placement cell and look for opportunities outside. Start-ups are a good way to get to know the core company structure and so interning there prepared you to comprehends the structure of big firms and organisation. Usually, internships in big established companies do not necessarily expose you to such subtleties and you may be put up on a task of which you may fail to see the relevance pertaining to the company’s motive. Lastly, he advices the many a times your expectations of a job profile may not match with what you actually end up doing. So, it is always good to ask questions and clarify your doubts before joining.
ALL THE BEST!!
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