Interning at London Business School

Taken from Hari Raghavendran (2018A4PS0514P). He's currently working on an energy-related research project at London Business School.

This article will be different to the other internship articles on this website, in the sense that I won't talk about cold mailing or finding opportunities. That has been mentioned in detail by Kanishk in DAAD-WISE and Getting a Thesis. I have mostly mentioned how I planned my undergrad and developed a profile that caught the attention of my LBS Prof. Hopefully, this can motivate you and give you some clarity on profile development and staying productive throughout your undergrad.

My Motivations

I had planned on doing research early on, not as a long term career goal, but mostly during my studying years. My goal is to work on sustainable infrastructure in a corporate sense. There is quite a lot of ground-breaking research going on in this field, but they are still not translated into the real world, which I believe can be possible through the corporate route.

There are a lot of financial difficulties associated with sustainability. It is often confused with just the environment, but it's a broad term, including the financial sustainability of a product. I am working on technologies around that area for quite some time. I felt that there is something that was missing in terms of economic values, so I decided to pursue a Finance minor alongside my interests in Mech, and started to work on the business side of projects in sustainability.

How my Profile Developed in Sync

I started off as an industry immersion intern right from the end of my 12th grade (through personal contacts). It doesn't create a huge impact, but it instilled some curiosity in me and helped me to approach a Prof in my 1-2. Seeing my motivation, he gave me a chance to pursue a SOP in 2-1. During this SOP, I kept my focus on quality work rather than the amount of work (quantity). You can have a look at my other article - Impact in Projects to learn more.

Since my second year, I focused on impactful projects, doing something out of the box & exciting. This is risky but really innovative. I got my 2-1 SOP published and my CDCs sparked interests in thermal and power plant engineering (PPE), taking the latter as a 2-2 DEL.

The project component in my PPE DEL was related to the economic analysis of fuels (demand vs supply management keeping carbon emissions in mind). Through this, I understood some current problems in the field of power plants - combined emissions and finance problem. This gave me wider clarity, and I started to explore renewables. For my PS-1 in Adani, I was fortunate enough to get a good project there that gave me a whole new picture of PPE. Yes, thermal power plants are necessary but not the end solution, which lies in renewable or nuclear energy. Another good piece of advice which I can give here: don't go to stations based on CGPA or names or what your seniors tell you, choose based on the quality of projects and your own interests. I apologise if I go too much into technical depths here, but hopefully, my example can give you clarity on your paths to developing a comprehensive profile within a domain.

Through my DOP in 3-1, I realised that renewables are where I could work better. I started searching for problems in it. This is important: if you like a field, focus on the current issues of that field first - that's where you can potentially work on and create impact. I found that renewable energy couldn't be controlled. Pumped hydro systems (PHS) with solar panels had control over the generation. I found that no one had gone through technical feasibility for this idea in the Indian context, especially in areas with high seasonal variation in solar and hydro. I was already familiar with emissions and economics. I wanted to keep my thermal roots intact and keep updating whatever I did. I found another idea that I could work on. Data centres were upcoming but are high energy systems, hence not sustainable. India has a fast-growing market in data centres. Why not do a systemic study to understand emissions and techno-economic feasibility to power data centres at different locations of India? So, I worked on this idea and wrote a paper for a Stanford conference.

Finding Profs

I searched for multiple Profs in top universities with a background in these areas. I went to Google Scholar and searched for keywords. Also, I browsed through university-specific pages and again searched for keywords. You can take the mail template from the articles I linked above, a lot has been covered there already regarding cold mailing.

How the Prof Got my Attention

While I was working on my DOP, in the meantime, cold mailing was going on (I sent more than 100 mails), asking for projects in energy economics. The LBS Prof luckily reverted back and wanted to collaborate on the Solar-PHS idea which I had mentioned in my mail. I started working remotely from December 2020 onwards, with a plan to complete this during my summer internship at the LBS campus. In short, how did the Prof get my attention? I identified a problem, got curious and thought of an innovative solution.

A point to note: I just had 1 conference paper when I approached the Prof. I did not invent something completely new, so this is not an impossible task that others won't be able to do. I just took an existing idea and applied it innovatively. I gave it a different dimension, like through an Indian context. India is lagging behind on research, use it to your advantage! The unique point in the project I proposed was to calculate the economic feasibility of an engineering solution.

In Conclusion ...

Tips for 1st yrs

Start looking at practical problems. It could be as simple as some cycle outside your Bhawan. Don't get afraid to get your hands dirty. At this moment, don't think about projects or startups. Ideate as much as you can, ask around, but don't do anything. This is the time for ideation and exploration, so don't start on something right away because you have ample time!

Tips for 2nd yrs

Don't rush in just because your peers are doing something good. Take your time to explore, do well in your CDCs and course projects, and find interests within and/or outside your branch. Once you get into something, you can't get out of it! So choose your interests wisely and as close to your heart, not the heart of your batchies.

Tips for 3rd yrs

Get working on your projects now. You should have chosen your areas of interests, developed some knowledge about it. Take formal or informal projects, approach Profs, work on your skillsets. If you're late, don't panic. If you can hustle enough to cover up what you missed in previous years, you'll be fine. Try getting at least one good project outcome at the end of your 3-1.