Grinding DSA all day for months, a nerve-wracking intern season and finally joining Citibank as a Technology Summer Analyst Intern (PS: I still haven’t memorised this designation). It certainly was a roller-coaster ride. The takeaways are immense, and the journey also holds several life lessons.

I worked at Citi this summer as a Technology summer analyst intern after securing a place in the on-campus internship program.

The COVID-19 pandemic was a gloomy phase for many. Disconnected from friends, locked in your homes, missing out on the college life of our dreams, putting on weight and whatnot. However, it presented us with an opportunity to work on ourselves and expand our skill sets. This is what I precisely did, utilise this period to work on my DSA skills. Leetcode was my Bible, Youtube lectures replaced Netflix and Eat, Sleep, Code, Repeat became my mantra. Preparing for the intern season consumed a significant chunk of my time during the fourth semester because there wasn’t much to do anyway, owing to the online semester.

The Intern Season

The intern season is indeed a time of nerves, testing your patience while you fail to spot your name on the shortlist. Skimming the noticeboard constantly, filling applications on Channel-i, appearing for multiple tests a day, reaching the final interview round and yet not making it. Disappointment and hopelessness take a mental toll, especially when you come from a non-circuital branch like Civil Engineering. When you finally bag that dream internship, it all pays off. A feeling of satisfaction, like none other, fills your heart. In the entire process, my peers tagged along and became my backbone.

Supporting each other when someone missed the CGPA cutoff and celebrating successes, the intern season also became a period of great bonhomie.

Life at Citi

When Citi broke to us that the internship would be virtual, it did shatter our hearts, but we were still looking forward to it. The seven weeks long internship acted like an eye-opener to the Corporate world. Outlook became the new Whatsapp. We worked on our pleasantries. We would no longer join meetings, but ‘bridges’ and ‘folks’ was the new buzzword in town. Citi graced their interns with stunning ‘Welcome kits’, which we received at the end of the internship.

The team at Citi is amiable, and the workload is minimal. They gave us a fantastic platform to interact with students from other colleges. Also, a shoutout to Anurag and Keerthana for being amazing co-interns.

The Project

We were assigned to different business units. I worked under the TTS vertical. Apologies, I don’t know the full form. We were grouped in teams of two or three, while some interns worked individually. Our project was to ‘Document APIs using Swagger.’ Our goal was to develop a generic Springboot project, documenting APIs to enhance the client experience while consuming APIs. Swagger is an industry-standard tool and is widely used to document APIs meaningfully. It is an extremely handy tool and very user-friendly.

We worked on the project from scratch, researching the Swagger Documentation and upgrading the project to the latest version, OpenAPI 3. We documented the APIs using YAML, integrated the file in our project, and utilised Swagger to render the API documentation. I won’t bore you with many technical details. Our manager, an IITR alumnus, heartily appreciated our work.

Learnings and Takeaways

“Work hard in silence. Let your success make the noise.” You will have to prepare for months, alone, sitting in your room or maybe even the ‘infamous’ library. Time and again, roadblocks frustrate you, but keep going. Genuine and honest efforts will undoubtedly yield results. A bit of luck does help.

Working on something entirely new on your own and implementing it successfully was the primary learning experience from the internship. When we were introduced to Swagger, we knew nothing about it apart from the fact that its developers had tried to come up with a really cool name. However, patiently learning about it taught us a lot of things that helped us successfully implement the project.

Never feel afraid to ask for help. The role that your friends play will go a long way.

Points to Remember

Explore what you exactly want from the intern season. Do you even want to give it a shot?

The nitty gritty details of the intern season and PIC guidelines can be cumbersome to understand. Make sure to research all details well and reach out to your seniors for guidance.

Start preparing in advance and be consistent in your preparation. Consistency is the key to cracking the intern season.

Everything is there on the internet. From lectures to resources, you name it. You just need to slog hard enough to get there.

Corporate life may seem to be an entirely different world. Take your time, read things properly and always ask for assistance. You’ll surely make some sense out of it.

Last but not least, do give your friends a chapo after bagging that internship :)