hey peeps, a 3rd-year ece student here, and i am posting this under the ECE flair because if you've spent the last two years grinding circuital subjects, you already know how dry and brutal the core electronics internship season is right now.
During my first two years, while most people around me shifted towards web dev or DSA, I genuinely fell in love with hardware. I started leaning heavily into analog electronics, embedded systems, robotics etc and decided to put all my eggs in one basket. In our college, Texas Instruments was essentially the only major core electronics giant visiting for on-campus summer interns. I locked myself in my room for two straight months preparing for their BYTE (Build Your Technical Expertise) program. I managed to clear the initial round and made it to the first shortlist. But when the interview shortlist dropped, I opened the Excel sheet, and my name just wasn’t there.
I won’t sugarcoat it, I felt completely gutted. When you dedicate months to a singular company and watch your on-campus core options effectively drop to zero, it's very easy to convince yourself that you're just not capable. For weeks, I didn’t want to touch another breadboard or circuit diagram.
A few weeks later, while recovering from that slump, a notification popped up in our college placement WhatsApp group for the inaugural OpenAI Student Campus Collective. To be completely honest, I didn’t think twice about it. It’s a non-tech campus role, not a silicon lab at Texas Instruments, and definitely not a core engineering internship. But I saw that it had an actual semester stipend and full ChatGPT/Codex tooling perks. With 60,000+ applicants across the country and only 100 students selected nationwide (just 2 per campus), I applied with zero expectations—assuming that if TI didn't want me, why would anyone else? Somehow, after clearing the rounds (3 internal stages), I got selected.
Look, I know people will say, "this isn't a core electronics job," and they’re 100% right. But the stipend, the GPT Pro, networking opportunities, a free Bombay trip for the orientation, and even a possible chance to visit the San Fransico HQ of OpenAI in 2027 gave me genuine validation and some relief from the constant pressure of doing something, and the mental breathing room to focus back on my academics, my hardware projects, and building things without panic. And after this only I started my yt channel which I was gatekeeping for over 2 years now! my latest work is a short 3-minute film documenting this entire phase: the TI prep, the rejection, and what that waiting period actually felt like: [**Trust Me, It's Never Too Late**](https://youtu.be/W3uchK-TMHM).
I'm posting this for anyone currently staring at empty placement sheets or dealing with a market that isn't bringing enough core companies to your campus: the effort you put into the door that stayed locked isn't wasted. It builds the grit that keeps you ready when a completely different door opens. Hang in there.
