Internships, and what not!
My experience with internships in the second year of my undergraduate.
Posted on 30th June, 2024 • By Jahnabi Roy
ִֶָ࣪☾.
🤍
The second year in college is when you get opportunities to explore the world outside your campus - in research and corporate fields. Research internships are the keywords we hear from our seniors: a chance to explore the state-of-the-art research techniques used by established global universities and the golden ticket to travel abroad at a young age - a paid trip. I dived into reading research papers to understand my interest in computer science. I was fascinated with AI and the fact that it is an active area of innovation and research today. I explored and connected with various professors, trying to grasp if I was passionate about the topic. I connected with an esteemed professor at Yale School of Medicine through Linkedin. He is a clinician and an active researcher in neuroscience and biomedical imaging. A couple of interactive sessions with him gave me clarity and helped me rekindle my roots in health tech. I applied to top colleges in the US and Europe, though I needed more time to get a positive response. With the winter coming up, I wanted to utilize it the most and work on a project in health tech.
I landed a research internship at IIT Bombay, working on a systems biology project jointly done with ACTREC, Tata Memorial Centre, Mumbai. The project, Functional Significance Checking in Noisy Gene Regulatory Network, abbreviated as FuSiON, attempts to use computational techniques to help the biologist zoom down on likely actors (or filter out unlikely actors) that play functionally significant roles in a wet lab experiment. I made the tool portable across operating systems and developed a user-friendly frontend to allow clinicians to use it without worrying about the backend technicalities. I got to work closely in a research environment and successfully completed my objectives in the duration.
I also did an advanced functional neuroimaging course in the fourth semester. As part of the course, I also did a project on Functional Connectivity in the resting state of the human brain using probabilistic graphical models. The project was a brute-force approach to converting the highly significant voxels into nodes and edges to denote the level of connectivity between them. As per research findings, hubs exist in the brain, which are densely connected nodes, and when under attack, lead to neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's.
Along with such an intense project in my fourth semester, I sought to expand my professional horizon. Several notable corporate programs were now opening up for me. Since I had research experience already in my bag, I was also ready to look for a corporate internship.
The first corporate program was the JP Morgan Chase & Co. Quant Mentorship Program. This was the only female undergraduate program. Everybody who registered was asked to take an assessment test. The test had two parts - aptitude and programming. Speed and accuracy were essential factors for the test to ensure your selection. Technical knowledge of programming languages was crucial to crack the programming section. Easily clearing the first round, I was selected for the second round, a case study round. Here, the case study was also divided into Quant and Programming. We had 48 hours to submit the case study. The programming section was a breeze, but quant was a new topic. I learned about Hedge funds and derivatives, futures, forwards and options trading, etc. I was so invested that I spent too much time articulating my answers and referring to many resources. Probably due to this, I submitted eight minutes late and thus wasn't considered for evaluation. Though heartbreaking, I learned a lot about quantitative finance, especially time management.
The second corporate program was the Uber She++ program. This was also an only female undergraduate program, where all registered students had to undergo a 1 hour programming test. I was nervous about the time limit. And the questions took a lot of work to crack. I could only partially solve the questions and thus did not get selected for the same.
The third corporate program was the BCG Ideathon. This was open for all undergraduates. The assessment test consisted of numerical reasoning and logical reasoning questions based on a case, with a time limit of 30 minutes, and a video section where you had to record yourself answering questions they presented within one minute. I could have been more confident in my video presentation; as a result, I did not meet the benchmark. But this was a learning experience to be prepared for every possible scenario.
The fourth corporate program was the Google STEP Internship Program. This was the only female undergraduate program as well. The shortlist mail for an initial discussion came out of the blue just a day before my last midsem exam. Thrilled about it and having no real expectations, I sailed through the first discussion and was selected for the rounds of technical interviews. The first round of interview was nerve-wrecking. I had always solved programming questions on sites without explaining them on the go to someone else. However, the interviewers were supportive and gave the necessary hints to push us to the right solution. My happiness had no bounds when I got the call for my selection for passing the first round and getting selected for the final round of interviews. I now have confidence in solving questions and articulating my thoughts accordingly. I also gave my second interview, but I fumbled at some fundamental parts of coding. I was not very happy with my performance, but I was thankful for my experience. I ended up with a rejection call, but I gained insights into the actual requirements of a coding interview.
With quant and tech interviews, I had one last section of the corporate field to explore. With this came the fifth corporate program - The Bain True North Scholarship. This was a female undergraduate program. The first step of the application was to write an essay on "What does True North mean to you?". The essay allowed me to dig deep into my roots and understand the key driving force behind my decisions. The next step was to undergo an assessment test consisting of a personality questionnaire and numerical and logical reasoning. After a long wait, the shortlists were announced, and I was on cloud nine as one of the shortlisted applicants for the further rounds of interviews. Bain provided resources to prepare for guesstimates - the basic fundamental to approach any case problem. It was fun and mind-engaging to solve guesstimates. It trained your mind to think about various factors accounted for in market-sizing. The first round of interviews was a breeze; the interviewers were consultants, kind and sweet, and they encouraged you to ask questions and answered without any judgment. The second round of interviews was not limited to guesstimates. Instead, it consisted of more open-ended cases and puzzles - which tested how you approached a full-fledged case problem. The interviews were with senior consultants and associate partners with more than a decade of experience in consulting. The final round of interviews, taken by a senior associate partner, was a behavioral interview with CV-based questions. And more of a personality test, understanding your attitude to problems, and so on. Going through the interviews, I found myself being very passionate about this field. I was elated to receive the "Congratulations" mail, confirming my selection for the program. This program offers scholarships, mentorships from top Bain leaders, and internship opportunities for the summer of 2025.
Now, about the summer of 2024? Reaching out through LinkedIn and going through a couple of interviews, I got the opportunity of a summer internship at Aditya Birla Management Corporation Pvt. Ltd., working with the OAB Team in a Data Analytics role for Quantitative Finance. Leveraging my knowledge of derivatives and hedge funds from the JPMC Quant Mentorship Case Study, I am now delving deep into the strategies used in professional trading. I have worked on developing backtesting trend following strategies in nifty and bank nifty indices. I am currently developing a strategy analysis tool, to assess performance of exsiting strategies with respect to the market indices, VIX fluctuations and index standard deviation. I have gained a lot of knowledge in finance and hedge funds, as well as computer science applications in these fields (particularly in systems and analytics).
The second year was like a wild rollercoaster, as I learned a lot about how companies work and what it takes to succeed in different roles. I also built a solid research base to use in my future endeavors.
I landed a research internship at IIT Bombay, working on a systems biology project jointly done with ACTREC, Tata Memorial Centre, Mumbai. The project, Functional Significance Checking in Noisy Gene Regulatory Network, abbreviated as FuSiON, attempts to use computational techniques to help the biologist zoom down on likely actors (or filter out unlikely actors) that play functionally significant roles in a wet lab experiment. I made the tool portable across operating systems and developed a user-friendly frontend to allow clinicians to use it without worrying about the backend technicalities. I got to work closely in a research environment and successfully completed my objectives in the duration.
I also did an advanced functional neuroimaging course in the fourth semester. As part of the course, I also did a project on Functional Connectivity in the resting state of the human brain using probabilistic graphical models. The project was a brute-force approach to converting the highly significant voxels into nodes and edges to denote the level of connectivity between them. As per research findings, hubs exist in the brain, which are densely connected nodes, and when under attack, lead to neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's.
Along with such an intense project in my fourth semester, I sought to expand my professional horizon. Several notable corporate programs were now opening up for me. Since I had research experience already in my bag, I was also ready to look for a corporate internship.
The first corporate program was the JP Morgan Chase & Co. Quant Mentorship Program. This was the only female undergraduate program. Everybody who registered was asked to take an assessment test. The test had two parts - aptitude and programming. Speed and accuracy were essential factors for the test to ensure your selection. Technical knowledge of programming languages was crucial to crack the programming section. Easily clearing the first round, I was selected for the second round, a case study round. Here, the case study was also divided into Quant and Programming. We had 48 hours to submit the case study. The programming section was a breeze, but quant was a new topic. I learned about Hedge funds and derivatives, futures, forwards and options trading, etc. I was so invested that I spent too much time articulating my answers and referring to many resources. Probably due to this, I submitted eight minutes late and thus wasn't considered for evaluation. Though heartbreaking, I learned a lot about quantitative finance, especially time management.
The second corporate program was the Uber She++ program. This was also an only female undergraduate program, where all registered students had to undergo a 1 hour programming test. I was nervous about the time limit. And the questions took a lot of work to crack. I could only partially solve the questions and thus did not get selected for the same.
The third corporate program was the BCG Ideathon. This was open for all undergraduates. The assessment test consisted of numerical reasoning and logical reasoning questions based on a case, with a time limit of 30 minutes, and a video section where you had to record yourself answering questions they presented within one minute. I could have been more confident in my video presentation; as a result, I did not meet the benchmark. But this was a learning experience to be prepared for every possible scenario.
The fourth corporate program was the Google STEP Internship Program. This was the only female undergraduate program as well. The shortlist mail for an initial discussion came out of the blue just a day before my last midsem exam. Thrilled about it and having no real expectations, I sailed through the first discussion and was selected for the rounds of technical interviews. The first round of interview was nerve-wrecking. I had always solved programming questions on sites without explaining them on the go to someone else. However, the interviewers were supportive and gave the necessary hints to push us to the right solution. My happiness had no bounds when I got the call for my selection for passing the first round and getting selected for the final round of interviews. I now have confidence in solving questions and articulating my thoughts accordingly. I also gave my second interview, but I fumbled at some fundamental parts of coding. I was not very happy with my performance, but I was thankful for my experience. I ended up with a rejection call, but I gained insights into the actual requirements of a coding interview.
With quant and tech interviews, I had one last section of the corporate field to explore. With this came the fifth corporate program - The Bain True North Scholarship. This was a female undergraduate program. The first step of the application was to write an essay on "What does True North mean to you?". The essay allowed me to dig deep into my roots and understand the key driving force behind my decisions. The next step was to undergo an assessment test consisting of a personality questionnaire and numerical and logical reasoning. After a long wait, the shortlists were announced, and I was on cloud nine as one of the shortlisted applicants for the further rounds of interviews. Bain provided resources to prepare for guesstimates - the basic fundamental to approach any case problem. It was fun and mind-engaging to solve guesstimates. It trained your mind to think about various factors accounted for in market-sizing. The first round of interviews was a breeze; the interviewers were consultants, kind and sweet, and they encouraged you to ask questions and answered without any judgment. The second round of interviews was not limited to guesstimates. Instead, it consisted of more open-ended cases and puzzles - which tested how you approached a full-fledged case problem. The interviews were with senior consultants and associate partners with more than a decade of experience in consulting. The final round of interviews, taken by a senior associate partner, was a behavioral interview with CV-based questions. And more of a personality test, understanding your attitude to problems, and so on. Going through the interviews, I found myself being very passionate about this field. I was elated to receive the "Congratulations" mail, confirming my selection for the program. This program offers scholarships, mentorships from top Bain leaders, and internship opportunities for the summer of 2025.
Now, about the summer of 2024? Reaching out through LinkedIn and going through a couple of interviews, I got the opportunity of a summer internship at Aditya Birla Management Corporation Pvt. Ltd., working with the OAB Team in a Data Analytics role for Quantitative Finance. Leveraging my knowledge of derivatives and hedge funds from the JPMC Quant Mentorship Case Study, I am now delving deep into the strategies used in professional trading. I have worked on developing backtesting trend following strategies in nifty and bank nifty indices. I am currently developing a strategy analysis tool, to assess performance of exsiting strategies with respect to the market indices, VIX fluctuations and index standard deviation. I have gained a lot of knowledge in finance and hedge funds, as well as computer science applications in these fields (particularly in systems and analytics).
The second year was like a wild rollercoaster, as I learned a lot about how companies work and what it takes to succeed in different roles. I also built a solid research base to use in my future endeavors.
Thanks for Reading!