Mahabahu has taught me how to conduct interviews, research, communicate

Mahabahu has taught me how to conduct interviews, research, communicate

Kristi Flora Karki

My journey with Mahabahu started from the 1^st of July 2024, as an intern for my one-month internship program.

During this one-month internship period, I have learnt and experienced a variety of things starting from taking interviews, writing articles, report writing and also went for various field works.

 The 1^st day at Mahabahu was all about introducing ourselves to our respective seniors and mentors, getting to know everyone at Mahabahu wherein, also our mentors explained us about the objective of our internship and various tasks to be executed as an intern.

The mandated theme of our internship was to perform a crucial study to analyse the current state and future potential of Assam’s start up ecosystem. For this, we were asked to collect data from various incubation programmes and budding startups regarding the challenges faced by them and explore potential areas for their growth. Accordingly, we visited some incubation centres physically and sent customised google forms to some others for collecting data.  

My first task was to take an interview of Mr Surjya Borthakur, one of the Co-Founders of Deroi Tea (it is a homegrown clean tea startup) and to prepare a report on the basis of the interview. My friends and I researched on Deroi Tea and prepared the questions to be asked during the interview, took the interview and subsequently, report was submitted.

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Our second task was to visit NEST (Assam start up) at Ambari, Guwahati and to interview Ms Juri Tara (Administrative Executive at Assam startup). On 5^th of July, Parimita Mahanta (fellow intern) and I took the interview. Ms Juri Tara was very welcoming and cooperative throughout the interview and her answers were found to be very informative. On the basis of the interview, we prepared a report which was later published on mahabahu.com.

     Our next task was to visit STPI (Software Technology Park) at Borjhar. There, we were assigned to take the interview of Mr Ashish Sharma (Chief Operating Officer at OctaNE centre of Entrepreneurship at STPI, Guwahati).

Accordingly, on 12^th of July, me with my friend Angela Chakraborty (fellow intern) took the interview. Mr Ashish Sharma was very warm and welcoming throughout the interview and his answers were found to be very educative and professionally useful. After the interview we both prepared an interview report and was submitted.

      We were also assigned to write some articles on given topics. In my part, I have written four articles on topics (i) The hottest June on record (ii) IIT Madras ruled out ‘mass malpractice’ in NEET-UG exam (iii) Srebrenica Genocide: Mothers send warning to future generations, urging “never again” and (iv) Chinese E-commerce Sites selling T-Shirts after Trump Assassination Attempt – which were later published on mahabahu.com.

I personally enjoyed writing these assignments the most, as everyday around 9 am we were given our respective topics for that day, then I would do research on my topic and collect all sorts of information important for my article and then wrote my article.

This article writing was very inspiring and beneficial for me, as it not only made me aware of the current affairs and issues happening around the globe, but also enhanced my vocabulary and writing skills. Moreover, the feeling of joy after my articles being published in a popular web magazine like mahabahu.com is unexplainable.

Inspired by the above experience, I myself also wrote one article titled “Social Media: A Friend or A Foe” of my own for publication at Mahabahu.

     Our last task was to perform a field survey, where each one of us was assigned to visit sites and prepare a report based on our field survey. My topic for the field survey was the ‘Traffic congestion under Six-Mile flyover’ and to find out about the possible reasons contributing to the congestion problem. On 19^th of July, I went to my assigned site Six-mile flyover and observed it entirely and tried to understand all the routes and examined which road caused the most congestion.

I also visited the nearby shops and interacted with the shopkeepers to get a better understanding of the traffic congestion. I also interacted with some of the nearby footpath vendors at the site. Most of them were frustrated with the current traffic congestion problem and shared their views on the problem.

I also clicked photographs of the site depicting the traffic congestion, both the day and night hours. On the basis of the data collected, I prepared a field report on it and submitted along with the photographs.

This was my first experience of interaction with public. At first, I felt nervous but, gradually I regained confidence and started enjoying the process which also helped me in getting rid of my social anxiety. This was a unique experience, which taught me how to initiate a conversation with strangers and extract information of our interest. This will be beneficial to me in times to come as a student of journalism.  

      I would also like to mention about our mentors who guided us throughout our internship.  Anjan Sarma sir, Sanjeev Sarma sir and Kakali ma’am – all of them encouraged us to give our best and supported us all along our internship. They taught us various things that is definitely going to help us in moulding our careers in future.

Kakali ma’am made sure that we all gave our best every day. She helped me realise my weak points and helped me get better at my work and encouraged me to give my best every day!

        I had a great experience working at Mahabahu, I learned so many new interesting things that is definitely going to help me in my future endeavour. I learned how to conduct interviews, how to approach people and communicate with them well, definitely helped me with my communication skills, I also learned how to write articles, how to do field works etc.

I look forward to work with Mahabahu in the future as well. I’ll always be grateful to Mahabahu for everything.

30-07-2024

Kristi Flora Karki is a student of the Communication & Journalism, Gauhati University.

Mahabahu.com is an Online Magazine with collection of premium Assamese and English articles and posts with cultural base and modern thinking.  You can send your articles to editor@mahabahu.com / editor@mahabahoo.com (For Assamese article, Unicode font is necessary) Images from different sources.