Hello to all those curious and nervous folks out there!! I am Tarundeep Singh Gill, pursuing a BTech in the department of Aerospace Engineering and would like to take you through my internship preparation, selection procedure and an absolutely exhilarating experience of ten weeks at General Electric (GE), Bangalore during the summer of 2018.
About General Electric:
GE is an American multinational conglomerate headquartered in Boston and operates in diverse segments such as aviation, healthcare, power, renewable energy, digital, transportation and oil and gas. GE Bangalore is the only R&D division other than the one located in New York. The sprawling 50 acres of campus equipped with state of the art labs with high-end technology is what really sets it apart from other R&D divisions across the nation. The work environment and culture of GE is unparalleled which really helps you to learn, experience and acknowledge the industrial research being done in today’s world.
Preparation and Selection Procedure:
GE regularly visits IIT Kanpur during the internship season as well as during the placement drive. In my third year, GE floated an offer to hire interns in the Aviation profile around the end of August which was open for all the departments. The selection procedure was based on a resume shortlist (almost everyone gets shortlisted) followed by a test which judged the students on the basis of quantitative aptitude, logical reasoning skills, verbal ability and technical aspects of the profile. For the quantitative, logical and verbal sections, I would highly recommend you to go through mock tests available at https://www.pariksha.co. For the technical portion, you require some fundamental knowledge about different components that constitute an aircraft as well as some idea about how certain instruments like the altimeter, speedometer etc for an aircraft work. One of the critical aspects of this test is the ‘speed’ and the other, of course, is ‘accuracy’. With a considerable amount of PRACTICE, you may very well be able to crack it. The test is followed by an extensive single round of a technical interview and an HR round. The technical round focuses on elements related to Thermodynamics (ESO 201), Mechanics of Solids (ESO 202) and, in some instances, Fluid Mechanics (ESO 204). These three topics would be the core around which generally all your technical questions would be based. It may so happen that the panel may ask you to choose the subject of your interest and the majority of the question would be from that sphere. It is of utmost importance that you be able to explain/defend every single point of your project mentioned in the resume. The HR round would simply analyze your thought process towards joining the company and communication skills.
Internship Experience:
The interns at GE are made to work under various teams be it tools (software), aerodynamics, high-pressure turbines/compressors etc. For the past couple of years, many firms have been working on developing ‘chatbots’ and so had been GE’s endeavor to build one. Being under the tools team, my job was to propose a fundamental structure incorporating machine learning (ML) techniques and eventually build a simple prototype of the chatbot. At first, the task seemed extremely challenging as I had absolutely no exposure to ML and neither was I into much of coding. But as they say, when push comes to shove, I had to educate myself about the basic overview of ML techniques and their applications towards building the framework for a chatbot. I had to also familiarize myself with Python language as it has been the modus operandi of late in developing chatbots. There were times when things went awfully infuriating and frustration set in, but with able guidance from my mentors, I was always able to come up with best of the solutions and applied them efficiently to my project. Mentors at GE are very open to interactions and take keen interest to teach you, advice you and groom you to meet the real-time demands of the exponentially growing markets. Although, I really could not apply all my theoretical knowledge acquired through different courses but definitely had the opportunity to learn so much about this ocean of ML that outstretches in almost all domains of the industry nowadays.
Take away:
Overall it has been a very knowledgeable and pleasant learning experience at GE and has been one of the greatest achievements of my life. I strongly encourage students who have interest in mechanics, dynamics and fluid mechanics to take this opportunity for doing core industrial internships, such as at GE, as they do offer you a great working atmosphere, incredibly rich experience along with a taste of great culture, one which has to be experienced to believe it.
Written by Tarun Gill and edited by Akhilesh Tayade
