Kolkata: Jadavpur University (JU) has made plans to conduct internship online for its Engineering students along the work-from-home format that has been initiated by various companies. The move comes with the uncertainty over student internship amidst the lockdown situation prevailing across the globe to combat the spread of novel Coronavirus. A meeting of the placement advisory committee was held online on Friday where this method of the internship was discussed. “We have given the nod for the online internship to the Engineering faculties who want to do so during the lockdown period. Talks have been initiated with the industries for making a database of those who are ready for this online internship.
Students need to have a laptop, personal computer and good Internet connectivity for the online internship,” said Chiranjib Bhattacharjee, Pro-Vice-Chancellor of JU. A senior university official said the online internship is feasible in departments like Computer Science, Electronics & Telecommunications, Information Technology, Instrumentation and Electronics etc while in a department like Chemical Engineering it is not possible. Usually in Chemical Engineering students need to go physically to the Indian Oil Corporation or similar refineries for the internship.
The sixth semester is going on in the university and as per rules of AICTE, the internship is mandatory for students after three years. A number of companies start internship from the month of May while some do the same from June. The duration is usually for a period of six weeks and goes to a maximum of eight weeks. The industries look into the internship record of the students before hiring them so in the context of placement it is of utmost importance. Companies like Amazon, Google, TCS can conduct online internships. “Instructions have been given to identify students who hail from remote areas and do not have the infrastructure for doing online internship from their homes.
The university will try to address such gaps in due course so that no one is deprived,” the official added. JU has 16 departments in Engineering among which 11 are located in the main campus at Jadavpur while another five at its second campus in Salt Lake. The total number of seats in Engineering at JU was 1,273 in 2019.