Prashasti Baranwal, a B. Tech Information Technology student from Vellore Institute of Technology, Vellore, who has always believed in action rather than words. She has completed 6 months internship at Microsoft, achieved her goals and established herself as a doer.
Here, Prashasti is sharing her experience being a Software Development Intern at Microsoft India (R&D) Pvt. Ltd., Hyderabad. Her apprenticeship will certainly propel her ahead of the curve.
Go ahead and know what her story has to offer to aspiring youth so that you can easily find a path of self-growth. Young Influxers go ahead and upgrade yourself!!!
How did you come to know about the internship?
Microsoft visited my college for summer internship recruitments. I was selected for a 2-month internship at Microsoft during my 3rd-year post which I got a Pre-Placement Offer. All the PPO holders were given the opportunity to choose between in-house college project and 6-month internship at the company during our final semester. I chose the latter as my college supported industrial internships for Capstone projects, thus getting the chance to complete this internship.
What was the location?
The location was Microsoft Office, Hyderabad, though the latter half of the internship turned out to be work from home during the lockdown imposed due to the COVID’19 situation.
What were your responsibilities as an intern?
My responsibilities as an intern included the following:
- Working on real-time projects and user stories along with my team for developing new features that are business impacting with enhanced end-user experience and improved performance.
- Keeping track of metrics like availability and reliability through telemetry by using services offered by Azure to optimize features and mitigate errors.
- Working with the team to create production-ready code with factors like authentication and accessibility in place.
How much time did you contribute on a daily basis?
The company provided a flexible work hour schedule with around 9-10 hours a day.
Share your proudest achievements and how were you able to realise them.
The proudest moment and the most significant milestone that I was able to reach during my internship was the shipping of my feature to production in the pilot mode that would soon go live for all users as well. That feeling of serving millions of end-users through my code was unprecedented. It was completed after extensive testing and it was required to ensure that all principles of coding and software development have been followed including vulnerability assessments, accessibility guidelines, proper authentication and various other factors in place following best practices of software development. It was with the support and guidance of the team, and encouragement given by my manager that I was able to achieve this during my internship. The energetic atmosphere and passion to achieve more were the key factors that led to this success.
What are the top learnings, skills and values that you acquired here?
One of the most important values that I learnt during my internship at Microsoft was the growth mindset and the “always be a learner” attitude. I found myself surrounded by people who are willing to learn more and more and grow their skills set. They valued others opinions and encouraged me to speak up freely about my ideas. They taught me how important it is to work as a team where we leverage each other’s work, discuss various approaches to look at the problem statement from different perspectives and work on real-time scenarios with code optimization to improve performance. Another important aspect that I learnt was how to create production-level code that complies with all the industry standards and proves helpful for millions of customers who would use the software.
Do you feel this experience is a stepping stone towards success in life? Illustrate how the experience gained will help you going forward in your career.
Every experience teaches us something new. This internship has helped me to ramp up with the industrial norms and practices that would help me, in the long run, to build real-time projects and work on business-impacting scenarios. From a developer’s perspective, success is when the codes we write and the features we build makes things easier or solves some problem for the customer base using our software. And the internship helped me achieve this. Apart from the technical nurturing provided during this phase, the other significant aspect is the team spirit, learner’s attitude and growth mindset values that would always guide me throughout my career to prosper and achieve more. It marks the beginning of my journey as the first step into the software development industry providing a strong base that would support my future endeavours.
What is your advice to those, who are aspiring the same or a similar internship?
It is very important to have a goal, something to look forward to, something to be crazy about. For those aspiring students, I would suggest keeping these three key points in focus:
- Learn to pitch and express well, both through your speaking skills and maintaining a good digital footprint. There are a lot of opportunities that come through online platforms like LinkedIn.
- Have at least one area of interest or expertise in which you have done projects that you can showcase and bring weightage to your resume. Choose any of the trending topics to be it Machine Learning, Artificial intelligence, Android, Virtual Reality, Cyber Security or any subject that excites you.
- Have a strong hold on coding if you are looking forward to a career in the software development field. This applies to every field, having a strong base on your subject, with practical knowledge through projects would not only help you to grow but also give you an edge over others.
How can we (Friends, Family, YI Fraternity) encourage young students such as yourself to involve themselves in different opportunities?
We are presented with a plethora of opportunities, waiting for us to recognise them and put ourselves into action to achieve greater goals. Some of the values that can help us to grow are:
- Never stop learning.
- Be passionate about your work.
- Have a clear goal.
- Bring in enthusiasm with team spirit.
- Prioritise things based on impact.
- Put your ideas into action.
- Learn to adapt and evolve to take control of your future.
We at Young Influx would take this opportunity to thank Prashasti for taking a leap of faith and sharing her impeccable story. We are humbled and grateful, your efforts mean a lot for the youth seeking growth and development.
And hello, dear readers, we welcome you to explore the platform with an open mind. Help yourself gain the most out of the experiences and opportunities listed here.
And before you bid us adieu, we would like you to know that you can read more such student stories here.
