Before actually leaving to India for a MT, the LPS organized by LC Tilburg made everything more concrete. By talking about expectations and plans of others who were also planning to leave, I realized that the start of my adventure was really getting close.
Some weeks later I said goodbye to friends and family, packed and arranged everything, and got on the plane, leaving the Netherlands for five months. When I reached Baroda, the city where I would be going to live and work, I got picked up by one of my Dutch colleagues and a local AIESEC’er. We went to our apartment by ‘auto-rickshaw’ seeing a lot of people and cows on the chaotic roads, so the first Indian experience was already taken care of. The first days were quite hectic and chaotic, but I got used to it faster than I expected beforehand.
One of the things why I went to India was to do an internship. I was an intern at an Indian IT company with Dutch and German partner companies. I was part of a team of German and Dutch interns, with whom we lived together in an apartment arranged by the company. Within the internship I focused on business development and project management. In practice, business development meant that I was looking for potential new Dutch partner companies to cooperate with. As part of this, I also joined the CEO for a business trip to the Netherlands and Germany, to meet some of these potential partners and to meet some of the existing partners of the company. This was a great experience and it was also nice to see some of my friends again, but I was also glad to go back to India after the trip. Back in India, we started working on new projects (also from companies we met during the business trip) doing the project management, which included talking to both the Dutch partners and Indian software developers. Later on I focused on the processes within the company and set up a customized CRM-system. Overall, the internship was not always that challenging, but I had a lot of freedom, learned a lot and really contributed to the company.
We (the other interns and me) were lucky not having to work in the weekends, so that we were able to see other places in India. Usually we took a sleeper train or bus on Friday evening, spending the weekend somewhere else and then again arrive in Baroda on Monday morning. It is an amazing colorful way of traveling through India, with a lot of people around and it is impossible to get bored during such a trip.
Picture: The day before ‘Holi’ festival at the office.
Looking back, the only conclusion is that I had a great time, saw most incredible places, learned a lot and made many new friends. I will definitely recommend a traineeship like the one I did. As long as you are really motivated to do something like this, everything will be fine, and you will also have an awesome experience abroad.
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