Six Northwestern students may have an opportunity to become paid participants in an online soap opera and internship program this summer.
Representatives from chaitime.com, the world’s largest South Asian Web site, spoke to members of South Asian Student Alliance Monday evening about a unique internship program called The Summer of Chai.
The program is a two-pronged summer event that will give six college students from across the country a chance to intern for chaitime.com while living in an environment similar to MTV’s “The Real World.”
Three males and three females will live in a house in Philadelphia from mid-June to mid-August. They will be filmed constantly by Web cameras in both their house and at work.
Live footage of the participants will be available over the Internet at chaitime.com. The six students will ultimately be the cast of an online soap opera called “The Young and the Desi.”
“The ‘Summer of Chai’ is meant to give South Asian students a special opportunity to get experience in a growing industry while contributing to the South Asian community,” said Marketing Manager Tanmay Bhatt.
Along with College Marketing Coordinator Dennis Percy, Bhatt has been visiting colleges to advertise the Web site and interview students for the program. In two months they will have visited 26 schools, including George Washington, Duke and Stanford universities.
Six students from each campus will advance in the interviewing process. Each student must then submit a resume and a cover letter, and then a committee from chaitime.com will begin the final selection process. The six NU students will be chosen and posted on the Web site by Friday, Bhatt said.
The students chosen for the program will work as paid interns and will receive stock options in chaitime.com, which is currently worth over $140 million. Bhatt said the company has branches in four global locations — United States, United Kingdom, Canada and India — and continues to grow in size and reach.
The interns can choose to work in their fields of interest, from computer programming to marketing to journalism.
The program is funded by a number of corporations, with Isuzu as the largest sponsor.
Although chaitime.com is a Web site targeted toward the interests of South Asian college students, anyone can audition for the internships, Bhatt said.
“Chaitime.com provides a terrific opportunity to feel the energy of young South Asian students and to help them realize their potential,” Percy said.
NU students had a mixed reaction to the summer program. Many said they either had previous summer plans or were skeptical about the 24-hour surveillance.
“I don’t like the idea of being watched constantly by billions of people,” said Weinberg freshman Sujan Reddy.
Other students were slightly more enthusiastic the idea of being filmed and about the internship opportunity.
“I’m an exhibitionist,” said Weinberg sophomore Anoop Wattamwar. “I have no problem being videotaped, plus we are getting paid.”
