u/Fun-Palpitation4006

[removed]

I’m a 6th sem Computer Engineering student and our college has made a 6-month internship compulsory in 7th sem (12 credits). The internship period is from June–December, while placements will probably start around September.

I couldn’t secure an on-campus internship in 5th sem, and honestly I’m not fully placement-ready yet either. Now I have two options:

1. Take a full-time onsite 6-month internship, which may consume most of my time during placement prep season.
2. Join a finance services company through a family contact. The company is real and established, but they’re basically allowing me to work independently on a software/web development project related to their domain and provide internship documents/certificate for it.

My plan if I choose option 2 is:

• build an actual finance-domain web/software project myself
• maintain documentation/GitHub/progress reports
• prepare properly for viva/presentations
• use the remaining time seriously for DSA and placements

Would this still count as a legitimate/self-driven internship experience, or is this ethically questionable? Also, from a career perspective, which option sounds smarter considering placements begin during the internship period itself?

myquals: 6th sem Computer Engineering student from India

Our college has made a 6-month internship compulsory in 7th sem (12 credits). The internship period is from June–December, while placements will probably start around September.

I couldn’t secure an on-campus internship in 5th sem, and honestly I’m not fully placement-ready yet either. Now I have two options:

1. Take a full-time onsite 6-month internship, which may consume most of my time during placement prep season.
2. Join a finance services company through a family contact. The company is real and established, but they’re basically allowing me to work independently on a software/web development project related to their domain and provide internship documents/certificate for it.

If I choose option 2, my plan is to:

• build an actual finance-domain web/software project myself
• maintain documentation/GitHub/progress reports
• prepare properly for viva/presentations
• use the remaining time seriously for DSA and placements

The company isn’t a software company originally, but they do have web portals/client systems and are okay with giving me a Software Development Intern/Web Development Intern role.

Would this still count as a legitimate/self-driven internship experience, or is this ethically questionable? Also, from a career perspective, which option sounds smarter considering placements begin during the internship period itself?