Design: Swati Sheenum, G Shreethiga, Shaurya Rawat, Abhiram Pavithran O, Rohit Gadarla and Hardhik Pinjala.
T5E’s Placement Survey 2020-21 was conducted in the month of February to study students perspective of placement season 2020-21. The respondents of the survey were final year students across different degrees and departments who appeared for the placement season of 2020-21. The survey witnessed a total of 171 responses from undergraduate students and 96 responses from postgraduate students. The survey explored various aspects like Opinion, Academics, Career, Extra-curricular and Preparation in the view of placements and the effect they might have on placements.
In this article, we explore the Career aspect. This article revolves around how internships and various competitions affected placements. The article is divided into two parts: Undergraduate and Post-graduate.
Undergraduate
Internships
Out of 165 respondents, about two-thirds have done either two or three internships in their entire insti life. In the remaining one-third, 2% have done only 1 internship, while 10% have done 4 or more internships. On an average, UG people do 2.3 internships in their entire inst life.
Majority of respondents have done an industrial internship in their pre-final year (about 80%). Interestingly in the rest 20%, 13% did not do any internship in their pre-final year, and merely 7% of the respondents did a research internship in their pre-final year. This basically confirms that people doing research interns in their pre-final year predominantly don’t sit for placements and directly go for higher studies.
Out of 133 respondents, only 22.5 % claim that their best intern was a Day 1 intern from the internship drive. A much bigger fraction of 47% say that their best internship is a Non Day 1 intern in internship drive. An off-campus intern is best for 30% of the respondents.
Does no. of interns affect placements?
Interestingly, No. of interns did not affect the final slot of placement much. There was a very weak positive correlation of between the two. 2-3 internships seems like the sweet spot for many students. Around 68% of the students who got placed on Day-1 have done 2 (33% of all students) or 3 (35% of all students) internships.
Does the nature of the internship affect placements?
Around 76% of the students who got placed on Day-1 responded saying that they had done an industrial internship in their pre-final year as opposed to the rest who had done a research internship.
Out of the ones who had done an industrial internship and gotten placed on Day-1 of placements, 51.42% had a Day-1 intern through the institute internship drive implying that not having a Day-1 internship does not affect your chances of getting placed on Day-1 by a lot. Note that these trends are also affected by PPOs of Day-1 internship companies as the students who receive a PPO do not get to sit for placements which might affect the number of students having a Day-1 internship in placements.
Case-study competitions
From 167 respondents, a majority (69%) of the respondents have never taken part in a case study competition in their entire insti life. In the rest 30%, only 20 percentage have taken part in one or two case study competitions, while 10% have taken part in more than two case study competitions.
Out of those who have participated, 65% have never won any case study competitions, even though 30% of the respondents have at least gone till the final round. 35% of the respondents have won, 23% have won 1 or 2 case study competitions, and 11 % have won more than 2.
Data Science/Analytics Competitions
Out of 166 respondents, only 24% of students have ever taken part in company organized hackathons like GS Quantify, Adobe Analytics Challenge, etc.
Again out of 166 respondents, only 15% have taken part in kaggle hackathons. This implies that case study competitions are more popular in insti than hackathons.
Coding competitions
Only 9% of respondents have ever taken part in prestigious competitions like ACM-ICPC. But interestingly out of those 9%, 62.5% have won or gone to the final round. This implies that coding competitions are of least popularity in insti, but some students are very serious about it and do a good job in these competitions.
On the contrary, more students have taken part in smaller competitive coding competitions on Hackerrank, Hackerearth CodeChef etc. (25%). Out of these 25 percentage, only 14 percentage have won.
Post-graduate
Work Experience
Out of 60 respondents, only 38% of the respondents claim that they have any work experience. Out of the 38%, 72% have work experience of less that 2 years, 28% have experience for more than two years. Average work experience of PG students is 1.6 years.
Internships
51% of PG respondents haven’t done any research/industrial internship in their entire insti life, which is much more than UG (13%). This may be because of the less time for MTech and MSc students. 47% of students have done 1 or 2 internships, while only 2% have done more than 2 internships. On an average, PG people do 0.7 internships in their entire inst life
For PG half of the respondents have not done any internship in their pre-final year. In the rest half, 41% have done an industrial internship, and merely 9% of the respondents did a research internship in their pre-final year.
Projects
Out of 57 respondents, a major chunk of students (70%) have done 1-3 prof projects, 25% have even done more than 3 prof projects. On average, the number of prof projects done by PG students is 2.7. No. of prof projects does not have a very strong relationship with the slot a candidate is placed in.
This confirms the fact that PG students are more inclined towards research than UG students.
Case-study competitions
From 59 respondents, a majority (86%) of the respondents have never taken part in a case study competition in their entire insti life. In the rest 14%, only 11% have taken part in one or two case study competitions, while 3% have taken part in more than two case study competitions.
Out of those who have participated, 53% have never won any case study competitions, even though 23% of the respondents have at least gone till the final round. 46% of the respondents have won, 38% have won 1 or 2 case study competitions, and 8 % have won more than 2.
This shows niche characteristics in PG, either they participate and do really good, or they don’t participate at all.
Data Science/Analytics competitions
Out of 58 respondents, only 14% of students have ever taken part in an ML/Data science competition. 9% have taken part in company organized hackathons like GS Quantify, Adobe Analytics Challenge, etc. 15% have taken part in kaggle hackathons.
Therefore for PG, hackathons and Case Study competitions are almost equally popular.
Competitive Coding Competitions
Out of 59 respondents, only 15% of students have ever taken part in a competitive coding competition.
Only 13% of respondents have ever taken part in prestigious competitions like ACM-ICPC. But interestingly out of those 13%, 50% have won or gone to the final round. Again its evident that coding is niche, but people who pursue it are really good in it. Most of the students who did take part belong to the Computer Science department with a few belonging to electrical engineering.
Conclusion
Internships are a crucial part which we all would agree affect placements in a major way. They shape your profile and highlight your interests in the field you are interested in. For UGs particularly, internships do seem to play a major role. Some key results from this aspect were:
- Most of the Undergrads do 2 or 3 internships in their insti life. Dual degree students have a higher average no. of internships than B. Techs.
- Of the people who got placed on Day-1, 68% have done 2 or 3 internships. No. of internships do not seem to have a strong relation with the slot you get placed in.
- Around 76% of the UGs who got placed on Day-1 had an industrial internship. Only about 51.2% of these had a Day-1 intern.
- For PGs, a major portion of students have not done a research/industrial internship. This number of higher compared to that of UGs.
- Projects under professors seem to be a popular choice for PGs, with the majority of the students doing projects. No. of projects however does not a have a strong relationship with the slot a student gets placed in.
- Case-study competitions and Data Science/Analytics hackathons are considerably more popular among UGs than PGs.
- Competitive coding competitions seem to be not as popular among UGs compared to the no. of jobs in the SDE sector that were reported in the survey.
That’s it from the Career aspect! Stay tuned for more analysis!
