At the end of the first year, during the months of May, June and July students intern for eight to ten weeks with organisations of their choice. Through summer internships students gain first-hand experience in a particular industry. These weeks are integral to the Post-Graduate Programme (PGP) and perform the important function of providing opportunities to apply —and challenge — ideas and techniques imbibed in the first year. As an intern, the student gets a chance to innovate and gets a close look at market needs. As their months of internship draw to a close, most students have a clearer idea about the area of specialization they will take up in the second year.
The summer internship also has an academic component:
Internship culminates with a report on the summer assignment which the student prepares and presents it to the organization where they have been working as well as with the IIMA before they register for the second year. The requirement of making a formal presentation about the project to the company and to the Institute ensures that sufficient rigour and discipline are brought in to this exercise.
Summer internships have typically been diverse, challenging, and intense learning experiences. Over the past six decades thousands of organisations of all types have accepted IIMA students as summer interns. Increasingly, a number of international companies have seen the value of this exercise and have collaborated with the Institute. For a company, the internship is a chance to evaluate an intern over a long period in a real business situation and make pre-placement offers based on this evaluation. A number of companies have used these internships as a key source for full-time hires.
