I interned at Ignite India Education for a month as a Grade X student from Ekya JP Nagar, my first real experience working inside a company. Ignite India coaches students for design and architecture entrance exams (NIFT, NID, NATA, UCEED, CEED) while focusing on portfolio development, mentorship, and career guidance. My role was in Business and Student Relationship Management, which involved competitor research, telecalling, SEO blogging, and lead management a genuinely wide scope for a school student.
What Challenges I Faced
Cold/Warm Calling
Calling 60 real parents and students was nerve-wracking. Conversations don’t follow a script – people cut you off or decline immediately. Learning to stay composed under rejection was the steepest part of the curve.
Competitor Analysis from Scratch
Researching five competitors BRDS, Silica, Pahal Design, Toprankers Creative Edge, and Arena Animation and producing a SWOT analysis for each required synthesising websites, social media, and direct observation in a way school research tasks never demanded.
Writing for the Web SEO
blog posts and Quora answers are a completely different genre from school essays. The goal is to answer specific questions students type into Google, not to demonstrate knowledge for a teacher.
Finding that tone took deliberate practice.
Mistakes, Learning & Skills
The Mistake That Taught Me the Most
Early in telecalling, I jumped straight into pitching the summer programme with no rapport-building. The result: polite, fast declines. A mentor’s advice starts with a genuine question about the student’s interests before introducing Ignite India changed everything. Communication is less about what you say and more about whether the other person feels heard.
Skills I Built
Field Research: Visited BRDS, Pahal, Silica, and DQ Labs in HSR Layout — evaluating visibility, branding, infrastructure, and digital presence firsthand.
Telecalling: 60+ warm-lead calls from the Meraki event; learning to handle objections and log outcomes systematically.
Digital Marketing: Quora posts and blogs targeting keywords like ‘NIFT coaching Bangalore’ to driveorganic search traffic.
CRM & Lead Management: Structured Google Sheets tracking call status, remarks, and follow-ups hands-on sales pipeline experience.
SWOT & Strategy: Full competitor analysis across five institutes, identifying gaps Ignite India can exploit around mentorship and holistic career guidance.
Understanding People & Real World Impact
The most unexpected insight was how much of business is psychology. Reading a parent’s concern on a call, noticing how Silica’s content appeals to Gen-Z, observing how BRDS uses award signage to build local trust, everything connects to how people make decisions. I started instinctively asking: is it price, fear of missing out, brand trust, or convenience that drives someone to say yes?
That shift from ‘what’s the right answer?’ to ‘what does this person actually need?’ is something school almost never teaches explicitly, and it’s arguably the most transferable skill I picked up.
On a bigger scale: India has massive creative talent, but the coaching ecosystem for design careers is tiny compared to JEE/NEET. Many students with genuine potential don’t know NIFT or NID exist. The telecalling, blogs, and competitor analysis I contributed to all serve one goal connecting more students to opportunities they’d otherwise miss. Even a Quora post with 26 views or a call that converts to an enrollment is part of solving a real problem.
Personal Growth & School vs. Workplace
I’m more comfortable with ambiguity than I thought – in the workplace, you make decisions with incomplete information and course-correct as you go, which I found energising rather than stressful. I also discovered I’m drawn to the research and analysis side of business more than the direct sales side, which pointed me toward strategy or marketing as a possible direction.
The biggest shift from school: effort doesn’t automatically produce outcomes. You can call 60 people and have 45 not pick up. You can write a post that gets no traction. The feedback loop is slower and less certain. But deadlines, thoroughness, and clear communication matter in both worlds — school prepared me more than I realised.
What Schools Should Teach Differently
- Communication under pressure – cold calling, presenting, negotiating – real skills almost never practiced in school.
- Spreadsheet & CRM fluency – tracking and analysing data in Google Sheets is a daily workplace requirement.
- SEO and content basics – understanding how the internet surfaces information is practically universal now.
- Business analysis frameworks – SWOT, competitive benchmarking, market sizing these areteachable in high school and would matter enormously.
Conclusion
In four weeks at Ignite India, I got hands-on exposure to competitor analysis, telecalling, SEO content, CRM management, and field research all while contributing to a mission I genuinely believe in: making creative career paths accessible to more students in India.
I came in as a Grade X student who had never worked in a real company. I’m leaving with stronger communication skills, a clearer sense of what business looks like from the inside, and most importantly the confidence that a school student can do real, meaningful work.
To Ignite India: thank you for the opportunity, and for trusting me with actual responsibility.
– Saketh Kotejoshyer · Grade X, Ekya JP Nagar
