Ananay Arora, Kaan Aksoy and Devyash Lodha are three Arizona State University students with different paths ahead of them but with one common goal: to save internships.
Is My Internship Cancelled was born in a messenger group chat. It was originally started as a side project, but soon, more and more of their friends were seeing their internships cancelled. They noticed people were struggling to find jobs and secure internships after theirs had been cancelled.
They never expected many people to look at their creation. Now, college students around the world visit their website to get updated about the status of their internships.
COVID-19 has limited in-person interactions. Ananay (left in the photo below), Kaan (top right), and Devyash (bottom right) use Zoom to communicate; in fact, Ananay and Kaan have never actually met in person. Is My Internship Cancelled was built completely at home, where they collaborate through a webcam on their computer and add to the site almost every day.
“At the end of the day all you need is a computer and an internet connection, and you can create anything,” Kaan said. While the pandemic has changed the way people will work forever, it has proven that there are no limits to human achievement.
Already, companies like Cloudflare have “doubled their internship program,” because of the website, according to Kaan. It has already rippled across the country, making companies reevaluate their decisions to completely cancel summer internships.
Kaan and Devyash know the value of internships because they have had multiple, including experiences at Facebook and American Express. Ananay, a sophomore, has an upcoming internship with Apple.
Devyash is a “hypersocial person” and learned important networking skills at his internships. Through his experience at Facebook, Kaan was able to gauge what working at a big tech company was really like. Both of them were able to secure full time jobs as a result of their internships.
Ananay, a bright international student from India, worked on the official ASU app and holds other on-campus jobs relating to computer science. “You will always learn something new when you go to a new job,” he said. “Computer science is gigantic.”
They all discuss their subject, computer science, with fervor and passion. Internships have served them well on their path towards success. Through their respective journeys, they have realized the power of internships. While they were able to utilize something as simple as an internet connection to make a deep, lasting change, their internships also developed their natural talents.
Internships are not only important for nurturing talent in students, but also for teaching them valuable skills before they join the workforce. While both Kaan and Devyash have secured full time jobs, all three of them recognize what Is My Internship Cancelled has done in the conversation surrounding cancellations.
Both the Symba team and the ASU trio are committed to continuously and vigorously making this conversation relevant. The pandemic has caused a chain of events that destroyed confidence in millions, but there is always hope.
Everlasting change will manifest in the form of accessible internships for all. These three aren’t stopping, either. They hope once the waters have cleared that their website can serve as a resource for students looking for internships. While these are uncertain, and quite frankly, scary times, both Symba and these three computer science students are there to make sure interns will always be protected.
By Anika Pasilis
