Ayush Sharma, a student at UIT-RGTU, Bhopal, shares his internship experiences at Uber, an NGO and his own enterprise.
Charting a career path and strategising for a successful career can seem lofty goals for students from Tier 2 cities and towns across India, even as students from top institutes and metro cities seem to struggle with this despite all the exposure and infrastructure. But we met up with Ayush Sharma, a student from UIT-RGTU, Bhopal who is proving ‘where there is a will there is a way’!
Ayush is a student of Computer Science Engineering and is in his Final Year. Over the last couple of years he has done multiple internships and even started his own printing solutions business. Here is what he has to say about his different internship experiences, including Uber.
Where are you currently interning and what do you do as a part of the internship?
I work with this NGO called ‘Walk For Water’, they are partnering with Nehru Yuva Kendra Sangathan which is a part of the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports, Govt. of India. They are organizing walkathons across different cities in Madhya Pradesh to celebrate World Water Day on March 22, 2017.
I was hired as a HR intern and had to mobilise and recruit other interns including marketing coordinators and graphic designers for executing the walkathon.
Now that the team is in place, I take part in other activities like marketing which includes pitching to local businesses and merchants for sponsorship.
How did you get this internship?
I am actively on the lookout for internships and came across this on an internship portal. I submitted my CV; it was followed up with a submission task and then a telephonic interview.
Where else have you interned and how was the experience compared to this?
In a startup like Uber even an intern like me could pitch an idea and start something new!
I interned with Uber in Bhopal previously. It was my first corporate experience and I was an operations intern then, I learnt a bit about everything. I worked with event management, with the Public Support Representative team even with Media team. In fact after that experience I wanted to learn something new, hence applied for a HR intern position. This was a very different experience culturally; Uber is a young startup kind of place whereas with Walk For Water I coordinate with older experienced persons.
It has given me perspectives on both the kind of work environments.
What are your major takeaways from your Uber experience?
My internship at Uber was a full-time experience, I worked out of their Bhopal office in a typical 10-7 shift but nothing else about the internship was typical! It was always buzzing with things to do, I especially took an interest in their marketing efforts. I had a lot of contacts in the media and printing business, which helped in getting connected for hoarding campaigns as well as radio. I also helped with designing marketing collaterals.
One thing I experienced is that in a startup like Uber even an intern like me could pitch an idea and start something new! It was my first experience in the corporate environment and I learnt how to work with teams across functions.
What was your best moment at Uber?
The best moment was really an entire day, the Partner event in Bhopal. The Uber drivers are the partners and the company continuously works on building a relationship with them and training them to be better at their jobs. Right from finding a suitable venue which would host 500 cars as everyone owned a car, to organizing the collaterals like car stickers it took a lot of pre-event planning.
On the day of event, we learned how to handle drivers who are not used to technology or for that matter even working with a big organization. I learnt what event management means for real!
Tell us a bit about your own startup experience.
Yes, I co-founded Printract.in, an online printing solutions company. We felt there was a lack of such providers in Bhopal and Gwalior and hence started it. I was mainly in charge of the Design and was involved with designing the printing assignments.
It was an interesting and fun journey, one of the best learning experiences of my life. But now I am looking forward to working before I start something on my own.
What are you future career plans?
I have a good amount of work experience through my internships and also continuously working towards strengthening my profile. I even network on Linkedin to increase my chances at landing a good job. Through my stints at various organisations I have learnt that I enjoy operations; business development and am looking for a job in the same.
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