Learning on the job
When 62 corporate companies take a keen interest in a particular college, it’s hard not to notice.
To provide students with a real-world experience, IFIM Business School is conducting a unique six-month ‘Industry Internship Program’ (IIP) for its students as an integral part of its curriculum.
The college believes in grooming its students not only for a one-time employment, but what they call ‘continuous employability’.
IIP ensures exactly that, by enabling students to respond to complex business issues by offering them a wide range of profiles like consulting, business strategy, analytics, research, branding, investment banking, corporate finance and human resource to name a few.
What is impressive is that leading companies like Price Waterhouse Coopers (PWC), HSBC, IBM, Siemens, Britannia, Biocon, FICCI, Heinz, Mahindra Satyam, CNN IBN, ZEE, Odessa Technologies and Glenmark Pharma have come forward and enrolled themselves in the process.
After all, it is a win-win situation for both the companies and of course, the students.
Companies like Panchantra, for example, have not only selected 10 students for the programme, but also assigned a consulting project to the college.
“I was looking for fresh and creative minds to come up with out-of-the-box ideas and my search ended with IFIM. I am not looking at the students as interns, but as managers to launch my brand,” says K Praveen Kumar, founder-president of the company.
Namrata, a final-year student, is currently interning with Biocon under the programme and is also a part of the placement cell.
“The college has a working placement cell that updates the existing database of companies to approach for internships as well as adds new ones to it.
In the past, a lot of students have been taken in as full-time employees of their companies within two or three months of interning. Since the response has almost always been good, the reputation of our students in the industry is maintained,” she notes.
For the students, this is a great chance to learn about the industry before plunging into it as official employees. “I’m really grateful to my college for giving me the opportunity to intern with Price Waterhouse Coopers (PWC),” says Iyzon Roman, a student.
“It’s my first step in the corporate world and to begin with a company like PWC is like a dream come true. I’m gaining a lot of knowledge in the company and also learning to apply what I studied in college,” he adds.
