So, recently I interned with Samsung Research Institute Bangalore (SRIB) for 2 months and my overall experience was surprisingly bad.

Now, coming to the onboarding process, payroll or infra setup, they were all on-time and done properly.

The part which affected me the most was the availability of my manager and his behaviour. All communication was made using their internal messaging app. Whenever I messaged them (there was a group which had an assigned mentor as well), they would instantly read the message but would reply after hours or even after days. I understand, they might be having some work, and the post they were working at, it might be natural to be busy most of the times. However, the same thing continued till the last day of the internship.

Now coming to the project, it was totally based on an internal framework which no one outside Samsung will be aware of. So, initially after being assigned the project, I started working on it as if it would be released into production, if not directly, then surely with some modifications from their side. The project needed some third-party APIs, which are mostly paid. The free ones either had very less info or had too less hits allowed. I communicated the same to my manager, to which he replied that it would not be possible to sponsor the API cost, so to look for some free ones. He also said, "If I was in your place I would have bought the full version of the API for 2 months." Firstly, it would have cost me around 300 Euroes, and secondly, what's the point if I buy it, and the company does not have access to my api-key? How would they test or work on it further? However, keeping in mind the number of hits required, when it would be deployed, I found a more-or-less compromised API.
After a few weeks, when I was accustomed with the framework, and was really engrosed with it, I came to know that it was a just for a demo from my side and nothing else. I was completely shattered. Besides, whenever I presented my work, there was something or the other missing (although it was the best that I could do with the limited info that the APIs provided), and looking at his expressions I was sure there would be no PPO for me. I again sat for on-campus placements and cracked another one, luckily with a better compensation compared to SRIB. Now, when I joined them as a 6 months intern, I realise how a Manager or Mentor is actually supposed to be, and hence this long post.

In these 2 months, I might not have learnt anything useful on the technical side, but I have surely been exposed to the dark side of corporate life. The only good things that SRIB had, was the handsome stipend and to let me know what a not-so-good manager is.

My sole aim of writing this is to know if I am the only intern who has faced this or are there others too, and also to let other future interns know that do not get your hopes too high. All the best :)