An internship program for any field of study is the first exposure to the real world scenario where the graduates will be stepping on. This is the period of learning real world practices used in their field of work. Learning beyond books, and grooming oneself as professional is what internship is known for. Where most of the final year students get real excited about this new journey to professionalism and exposure to market, BIM final year students start to panic; may be not all but most as I have seen since my final year of BIM. And, the panic is caused by the dilemma in selecting the internship field; Management or Information Technology?

Bachelors in Information Management(BIM) not being the especialized in one particular field, such as BBA, BIT, BE(Computer) etc., provides blend of management and IT courses. With more than 50% courses being IT courses overpowering 22% of core management courses, the aim of this program is pretty clear. BIM is introduced to prepare IT professionals with managerial skills to fill the knowledge gap between the information technology and management departments in the organization. Even the internship guidelines from TU states following areas for internship:

• Development (Software or Hardware)
• IT Service Managemnet
• Information Management
• Business/Operations Management
• Office/Business Automation

All of the above internship areas as specified by TU are highly IT relevant. If we just look at the scenario now, it looks like there should be no confusion on where to do your internship? The obvious answer would be of course Information Technology. But, why are students always complaining about this? Why are they always keen on doing internship in managerial posts? Why do most BIM students try to avoid these internships on IT?

The obvious reason would be that the students are not skilled enough in such IT relevant sectors. Most of the students defend their incapability of handling IT sectors by stating that they dont have the best of IT background as most joined BIM from management, humanities or even arts background. They would argue that only science students have strong base of computer knowledge. But I would have to disagree on this part. If you have a closer look at the BIM curriculum, you would realize that the curriculum is designed to prepare IT professionals from very scratch. From basic computer knowledge, basic programming skills to advanced IT concepts and advanced programming skills, its all laid out pretty well. So, if everyone is starting from scratch, it is pretty much the same learning path for students with all kinds of background. Besides, I have come across certain brilliant students in BIM who have never had opportunity to use computer before they joined BIM.

BIM students who are not willing to do internship as IT professionals, might place another argument stating that they have never had an opportunity to implement their IT skills other than exam papers. And I too,  have to agree on this one. In most colleges, where BIM is taught, are not considering the project development in IT courses. Forget projects, most are not even willing to take proper practical exam of IT courses and rather see it off with external VIVA only.

Learning  only the syntax of programming language would be a complete waste if one cannot use it to generate a logic that would solve certain problem. As I have seen over the past three years of  teaching career, I have to say the its BIM colleges and their management  who are also to blame for not developing proper IT skills in their students.

With poor IT skills, it would be obvious that students would want to rather see off  the panic internship period by doing mangerial internships such as bank tellers mostly, rather than trouble themselves with complex codes and programs. But TU has imposed certain requirement for internship which includes IT field as I stated above. And, here the worst part of the scenario begins. Many BIM colleges (not all) who were supposed to prepare their students for such IT-based internships as required by University, are themselves paving a way around the hurdle for their students. They allow the students to do internship in  managerial fields mostly at financial institutions, and just for TU evaluation, they would ask their students to prepare report on any micro software development project. As TU evaluates just the report and presentations, without having the project demonstrations, the students would get through this easily.

The problem doesnt end there, it rather starts the biggest dilemma for other students. When other students hear that certain BIM students are doing internship in banks, then it would ignite the confusion more. Everybody wants the easy way out of problem. So the debate begins again; the questions rise again. Why cant we do internships in managerial field?

My answer to all those question would be that students should have had clear overview of the BIM course before they join it and realize the obligations it possesses so that they would not have to regret it while they are pursuing the course. When BIM is designed to produce competant IT professionals, how can it produce managers who are not even as qualified as BBA grads.The answer was pretty clear from the very beginning, from the very moment one joins the program. The final product of BIM is supposed to be IT professional with manageral skills in their shelf.

Its just too bad that it is not going the way as expected. The popularity of BIM is going down due to decreasing IT professionals it has been producing over the years. Even the quality of professionals from BIM has been questioned in the past. Being a BIM alumni, I would really like change the scenario and contribute in the way I can. Hope the relevant organizations and people realize the scenario before it worsens.