Cancellation on summer internships due to COVID19

Whosoever if in agreement of the underscored issue,may sign the petition,it would be really appreciated.

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Dear Sir/Ma'am,

We urge you to rethink the recent decision taken by AICTE about the cancellation of internships due to the COVID-19 lockdown and not put student's careers in jeopardy.

The summer internship process plays a crucial role in the professional development of a student during their undergraduate level which can affect their future job prospects. An internship enables us to gain first-hand exposure of working in the real world which in turn works as a firm's major hiring criteria when they come for placements at an undergraduate level. This is the only chance of such an industry exposure for pre-final year students before we sit for placements.

The summer internship process also plays an important role as many firms hire strictly through the PPO route. They take in interns and after going through their work for the two months, making them a pre-placement offer. Many of the companies then DO NOT hire from campuses during final placements.

Students have been preparing for these internships for months, we go through several rounds of interviews and tests similar to placement interviews and equally as stressful. Cancelling these internships will:

•Hamper the placement statistics furthermore, in these already troubled times of economical turmoil and uncertainty of jobs in the near future with many companies already cutting down their workforce.
•Deprive India's future workforce of necessary industrial experience.
•Take a toll on student's mental well being, adding more stress over an uncertain future.
•Undermine the efforts students have put in for months to crack these highly competitive interviews.

A lot of routes can be taken rather than cancelling internships altogether and putting our future jobs & career in jeopardy. A few of them are:

•Recruiters can be urged to giving interns work from home on virtual projects which many companies have done for their employees. Since a lot of the firms are software-based, work from home is an achievable possibility.
•Internships can be delayed and their duration can be shortened.
•Interactive video lectures and material provided online along with assignments and quizzes should be conducted to cover the syllabus of the remaining semester, thus shortening the semester in order to include an internship period.

These are trying times indeed and we hope the ultimate outcome from our degree i.e. getting a satisfactory job, would not be given a deaf ear to.

We hope a decision will be made keeping in mind the best interests of students and their careers.

THIRD YEAR,NIT JAIPUR    Contact the author of the petition