“The reality of working life is very different from the knowledge learned from books only”, exclaims Shailendra Mohan Dixit talking about his Summer Internship Project with Mott McDonald. He says the Summer Internship Programme (SIP) of Jaipuria Institute of Management has helped him understand this gap between academics and industry, and has also shown him the ways to bridge this gap.

Shailendra hails from Mathura in Uttar Pradesh. He loves interacting with people and travelling, which is the reason that led him to an interest in Jaipuria for higher education and marketing as a career. He has joined Mott MacDonald as a Market Researcher and his job is to collect feedback from various areas of Mumbai. “I have to collect 400 responses and then analyse the feedback with the help of various analytical tools and give my recommendations and suggestions about the project”, he says.

The SIP interview was an experience in itself, Shailendra shares: “I believe I bagged this opportunity based on my past experience in marketing with Relcon Infra Ltd. and RED FM.” This SIP is exciting for Shailendra, more because he will be earning a stipend as well: “I am going to save this stipend ‒ after all it’s my first salary as a management major!” However, he understands that SIP is a serious assignment. He is glad for the mentoring that he is receiving from Prof. Pooja Singh Kushwaha, and he is leveraging this opportunity as best as he can. He wants to build his competencies in the marketing domain and increase his employability quotient. He is putting his best foot forward and working hard during this SIP. “I wish to understand what makes an aspirant employable”, he tells us. “And, I hope that I receive a pre-placement offer from Mott MacDonald”.