Hi, I am Pranav Maniyar, a third-year student in the Chemical Department. In my free time, I binge-watch and have also started to be health-conscious these days going to the gym and playing badminton.

About the Internship

I secured my second-year summer internship in a chemical core company called Beiersdorf (cosmetic company) famous for its brand Nivea, although my role was a mix of both core and non-core. It was a 2.5-month internship starting a week after the endsem and continuing till mid-July. The office was in Navi Mumbai and the work culture was really good, I got help from my buddy and managers whenever I asked for it. We used to have fun events on alternate Fridays and I enjoyed this journey a lot.
My task was to work and optimize (wrt cost, stability & other parameters) the new formulation of creams that Nivea is going to launch soon, which involved a lot of experimentation & data analysis, and also work on a prototype of the NIVEA babycare app which I made with no coding in 1 month. It would have taken me much longer if I had hardcoded the app, so I decided to choose the easy way out xD.

My Sophomore Year…

I had done 1 course in CS and DS each, so wrote a dual minor on my resume (January resume) which eventually put a good impression on your resume. I had one POR as a junior design engineer and other coordinator PORs to fill up the resume! I also took a research project in ChemE TL and a course project on optimization.

Apping Process

For the summer intern season, I had lost hope and was doing apping, approaching using the email ID of employers with the help of Apollo and Streak in the software/finance domain, and at that time I didn’t even think of core. A few of my friends got interns through Ecell & Abhyuday, so look out for whatever opportunities come your way. I applied for Beiersdorf and was eventually selected over a few thirdies and other sophies. I still don’t know how I pulled that off.
I’d suggest that y’all learn how Apollo and Streak work, make a database for yourself, apply for winter/summer internships, and not wait for PT cell internships to come.
Do some good projects to add to your resume, approach professors in the required department if you are interested in that course & do a research project under them which would add a lot of value—approach seniors for advice who have done internships in that domain and can help you with their contacts.
In the interviews you face, try to be confident with your projects and POR as they also know you might not have adequate knowledge but are a helpful resource.