Albeit the title sounds like a story where an underserved college undergrad bags the coveted internship “accidentally”: no, this is not about it.

The summer of 2021 will be etched in my mind forever. It was the summer post-2nd year of my undergraduate term. The spring ‘21 semester was the inflection point of a series of bad academic standing for the first three semesters, despite being interested in core electrical engineering. Confidence that had taken a death blow for 1.5 long years, finally surfaced, especially due to EE207 (electronic devices). I bagged a summer internship at Carnot Technologies, an agri-tech startup through the placement cell, around April ‘21. Little did I expect to get an intern through PT cell as my CPI was low, but I had done many projects in the hope of clutching the straws to compensate for bad academics. I got into Carnot chiefly because of a research project I did in the third semester (iSURP) based on hyperspectral image processing. April ‘21 was probably the happiest time of my life, getting an intern without even expecting as well as having a comeback from the academic downfall.

So the universe had some other plans, it seems (no, I am not a pantheist, but it feels a little comfortable to address the “doer” of all the seemingly random yet organized events as the universe and not some single entity). Soon, in the second week of May, everything I considered the solid rock foundation of my belief system collapsed. The rest of 2021 can be summarised as biting the bullets, fighting adversity, and finding the right “Belief System” to sustain the newborn optimistic nihilist in me.

I kept preparing for the upcoming intern season, did my intern work, and did a research project. Later in July, at the end of the internship, I was offered placement/ future intern/ open doors at Carnot for good work. All the division heads were invited to my presentation. It was a good day. The summer after the second year is an excellent time to think about what you want to do. The semiconductor industry was something I could see myself working in eventually (I can still see it). I spent time learning about the industry and studying what I like.

In July, I prepared a little for the upcoming season and core was the only domain that I wanted to apply to. Texas Instruments was the first firm for core students. There was a test for shortlisting students for interview. I remember giving all intern tests, academic exams in a dilapidated state of mind but was sure that I’d do good. Texas Instruments shortlist came and there was no name in it. It had total 6-7 profiles, with some students getting shortlisted in multiple. There were electrical minor students shortlisted too (although no one got selected eventually). Just the fact that I wasn’t even shortlisted was pretty heavy to digest. Stoicism consumed me enough to not pay heed to whatever was going on. Over the complete semester, I was shortlisted in 0 firms. It is actually a throw of a die in intern season, many people don’t get what they want. So everyone eventually applies everywhere and gets an intern usually. The fact is if you don’t apply, you are not going to get selected, for surely. I was adamant on interning in core so applied to only core profiles and wanted to go to Texas/ Qualcomm/ Samsung Semiconductor (PS: The only companies that take DD students as interns).

My plan was to do research under a professor at IITB otherwise, since I had this hint that I would be wanting to go for grad school eventually. I was already doing in-semester research and focused on improving how the transcript would look 2 years down the lane. Thinking that my grades were too ugly to get selected for a Univ intern or industry intern through apping, I didn’t apply anywhere except AMD and Intel (got no reply; AMD replied after a year :D offering a full time position thinking I must have graduated). Post Samsung semiconductor that came in October, I didn’t open the internship blog. So summer project was the plan.

Fast forward to April ‘22, when the best semester ended, I had recovered in academics in three semesters after the first three semesters. I had this fomo that everyone else was going to do an internship, whereas I would be doing research. I contacted my second year intern mentor Yash, to ask if I could continue again at Carnot. After a brief call with him, I got to know he had left Carnot 6 months prior and was at Atomberg. He asked me to send my resume. I had an interview and was selected for a sensors/ embedded RnD role, around May 10.

So, a second year iSURP project led to a second year intern, and second year intern led to a third-year intern (ended up working with Yash again, eventually!). No shortlist in third-year intern rendered me to give importance to the thought of going to a grad school. In the end, I ended up doing a core intern as well as research with professor, which was the exact thing I wanted to do a year back then.

My colleagues at Atomberg were the best one could wish for. We used to make fun of someone being the favored intern and someone neglected. Towards the end of the internship, everyone’s mentor discussed about PPO with their mentees informally, except me. We joked that I was “The Accidental Intern”, hence I am not granted a privilege as others (the real reason was that the HR said no PPO for DD).