Surbhi Sahu at TATA Steel

 

With the beginning of 3rd year, I was also sailing through the same boat as everyone else, trying to get a good internship in a decent company. Being a core enthusiast, I signed up for the esteemed company TATA Steel and was fortunate enough to make it through. I have tried my best to throw light on several aspects of the internship at TATA Steel to help and motivate a few fellow aspiring chemical engineers.

It follows a typical selection procedure which starts with a test followed by GD and then PI. The test consists of different sections (Chemical, logical, verbal etc.). PI was a mix of technical (mostly from resume or questions from your ‘so called’ favourite subject) and HR questions. TATA steel does not focus on your CPI, so if you are an enthusiastic person (with not so fancy CPI), ready to work in a bit harsh conditions and contribute to the company with your new innovative ideas, you are good to go. If you have a sports background or are involved in some kind of physical activity then it’s a plus point.

So the journey began on 3rd may. First day of orientation was a treat to us with all the good food and personalised goodies (if not counting on some of the boring lectures though). Once we got the safety equipment we were allowed to enter inside the plant. And oh, boy! The plant is gigantic, standing in all its grandeur, it will definitely lure you to explore it more.

They hired from several elite institutes including IIT Roorkee, IIT Kanpur, IIT Hyderabad, IIT Kharagpur, NIT Rourkela, NIT Trichy and many more making up a total of around 80 interns covering different departments like metallurgy, civil, electrical, mechanical, chemical, and production engineering. TATA steel has over 8 divisions. Each intern was assigned a guide and a mentor from respective division to get through the work smoothly.

I got to work in R&D and scientific services division. The topic of my project was ‘Calculation of cost economics of HR coke’. So basically I had to do a techno-economic analysis of a new coke making process and analyse the profitability of its use in the blast furnace. Essentially I had to work out relations between different blast furnace indices and based on them calculate the profits in conjuncture with real life blast furnace data. I also had to estimate and optimize HR coke cost coupled with its sensitivity analysis using Monte-Carlo simulation. Although it was a completely theoretical project but it was a challenging and mind grilling project which allowed me to sharpen my analysing skills, learn titbits of excel analytical tools, develop an exhaustive understanding of blast furnace functioning. People were warm and supportive and emphasis was given on the approach to a problem rather than the final answer.

Initially you may find the city Jamshedpur a little slow paced but over the time you will start embracing it. Initial few weekends will be fun but eventually you run out of places, but then there are other cities nearby you can go to and have fun. Although I being an avid reader was at peace in my room with a book in my hand and pouring rain outside. There is JRD sports complex where you can take a membership of and pursue whatever sports you like along with the internship.

Overall it was indeed an enriching and productive internship experience. If you are in any way interested in core or has a tinge of working on new ideas then its definitely worth a shot.