The option of Design Internship

should I take a drop or should I join a job?

Your college days are almost over and you step out into the real world. You see a big and high signboard staring in front of you. Options of MBA, M.Tech, MS, M.Des tug at your desire to go back to college while a lucrative job shines her gold at you. So what’s it going to be?

If you are preparing for competitive exam, you may need time. For this many students choose the option of dropping a year, staying at home and preparing full time. Such students definitely do have a plenty of time to go through each and every detail, an advantage which the working professionals lose out upon.  The next question that comes up in your mind is, should I take a drop or should I join a job?

You see, there are many factors in deciding whether to take a drop or to join a company. These factors are: what liabilities you have at home, do you need to earn money, need to settle down quickly, etc.  If you take up a job, you wont get lots of time to prepare and if you take drop this year for preparations, you will lose time. Typically in IIT interviews, the people with exposure to design are seen to fare better than the students who don’t. So my suggestion is that have best of both worlds. Join internship in a design company. This way, you will have exposure to design field, which will be counted during your selection interviews, and you will get time to prepare for CEED and NID. Many of these internships are not paid, a relatively small price to pay for the time and experience you get.

How to get an internship position

Points to be noted:

Remember not all company offers internship positions all the time. Sometimes, if you have a friend in an organization that you are interested in, I would advise you to approach him/her and ask him/her to recommend you for an internship in that organization. If your friend is able to convince the right people in that organization, they might create an opening for you!

                I would suggest that you should apply to studios or a company that deals in FMCG. This is because these companies have a short product lifecycle. Simply put, they roll out a product typically in about 6 to 10 months’ time. This means that your short stint at such organizations guarantee that you will have a substantial material for the portfolio and interview at D-schools.

Another approach, which is a bit trickier but often seems to work is, study the business of the company you are interested in and then offer them some improvement. Like I said, this approach is trickier because, first, you will need to know the right person to pitch your idea to, and, second, the chances that your idea will be shot down are quite high. So do your homework thoroughly before you go on pitching your brain.

NGOs and non-profits make a lucrative bet too. They are always looking for more helping hand and you will probably be doing some meaningful work. Just be careful to double check if the job is really needs you to design something and not just social service.

Most design companies don’t really know how good you are, so you should approach them with your work samples and a portfolio that demonstrates what you are capable of. If nothing, it will give them an idea on how to use your skills.

Finally, most design internships are not paid and if at all they are paid, the pay is poor. Still don’t give up on the face of the situation; you can try to negotiate for a payment and other facilities like canteen and travel. Even if you don’t get paid, keep this in mind that you are applying for internship in order to gain the experience and time to prepare for the exam you are planning to appear for.

Steps to apply for internship

- Ask your friends if they know anyone in the organizations that interest you. If there is someone, then you need not read any further and start talking to your mutual friend. if not then read ahead.

- Go to this page and choose the industry that you find suitable 

- Go to their webpage and figure out what they might be looking for in their intern. If you are going to follow the idea-pitching method then you should spend lots of time trying to understand the basics of their business

- After understanding what the company wants, prepare a decent portfolio. This portfolio should be made on similar lines as described in this post. Be sure that you compress the portfolio in a PDF not more than 5 Mb in size. This is because most companies have an upper limit on the mail size. 

- Now you have the necessary things to send out your first mail. Find the contact page and send out the mail stating who you are, what you wish to do and why they should take you as an intern.

- Once they call you for a talk, book the appointment with the people at the organization, go to the work place in full formal clothes and present your works. Don’t forget to negotiate for the goodies! :)

- And hopefully they will see that you might turn out to be low-investment-high-turnout asset for them!

All the best interning before clearing CEED or NID. You will have a solid work experience to present in the interview!