Cracking Amazon: How to Get an Internship in Second Year & Win ₹4 Lakh Scholarships | By Geethu Talks | Career & Tech
Table of Contents
💡 “I really wish I knew about this in my first year!”
That was my exact reaction after learning about these opportunities. If you don’t want to regret missing out, read this entire blog and watch the full podcast on our YouTube channel!
▶ Watch the Full Podcast🌟 Meet the Student Who Made It Happen
Imagine this: You are a second-year B.Tech student, but your success story actually started on day one. Right in your first year, you receive a brand-new laptop and step straight into a comprehensive mentorship program that guides your exact career path. To fund your education, you secure a massive ₹4 Lakhs in scholarships for your entire B.Tech journey—₹2 Lakhs from FFE (Foundation For Excellence) and another ₹2 Lakhs from the Reliance Foundation. And then—as if that wasn’t enough—you crack a highly coveted internship at Amazon in just your second year!
That’s not a dream. That’s exactly what our podcast guest accomplished through the Amazon Future Engineer (AFE) Scholarship, and she’s here to tell you how.
And the Amazon internship stipend? You will be shocked if you know the stipend! 🤯 You’ll have to tune into the full podcast episode to find out — trust us, you won’t want to miss it.
Here’s what she received through the AFE program:
- 💰 ₹4 Lakhs scholarship — real financial support that took the pressure off and let her focus on learning
- 💻 A free laptop — no more worrying about equipment; she was equipped from day one
- 🧑🏫 One full year of dedicated mentorship — career path guidance, skill-building roadmaps, and problem-solving support, all from industry experts
- 🏢 An Amazon internship — the dream destination for computer science students, and she cracked it in her second year
Whether you’re a fresher stepping into your B.Tech journey or a second or third-year student gearing up for placements, this blog is your blueprint. We’ve broken down the exact scholarships, resources, and strategies you need — all in one place.
Let’s get into it.
Section 1: Top Scholarships Every B.Tech Fresher Should Know 🎓
One of the biggest regrets students have is discovering scholarship opportunities after the deadlines have passed. Don’t be that student. These programs can change the entire financial and professional trajectory of your college life — just like they did for our guest.
🔑 Why Scholarships Matter More Than You Think
Scholarships aren’t just about the money (though that helps enormously). The best programs — like the AFE — come bundled with mentorship, networking, internship pipelines, and skill-building resources. Applying early and applying smart can open doors you didn’t even know existed.
Here are the top scholarships every B.Tech student should explore:
🏅 1. Amazon Future Engineer (AFE) Scholarship
The scholarship that started it all! The Amazon Future Engineer program is designed for high-achieving, financially deserving Computer Science students in India. Beyond the financial award, it offers structured mentorship, career guidance, and a direct pipeline to Amazon internships. Our podcast guest is living proof of what this program can do for you.
Keep an eye on Amazon India’s official careers and education pages for the application window.
🏅 2. Foundation For Excellence (FFE) Scholarship
The Foundation For Excellence is a powerhouse scholarship program that supports academically brilliant but financially challenged engineering and medical students. FFE doesn’t just hand you money — it connects you with a network of mentors, industry professionals, and alumni who actively invest in your growth. If you’re a fresher coming from a financially constrained background with strong academics, this should be at the top of your application list.
🏅 3. Reliance Foundation Scholarships 2025–26
The Reliance Foundation Undergraduate Scholarship is one of India’s most prestigious and well-funded student programs. It supports students across STEM and humanities streams with financial aid and mentorship opportunities. The 2025–26 cycle is open, so act fast — these scholarships are competitive and deadlines come up quickly.
🏅 4. TalentSprint WE (Women Engineers) Program
Specifically designed for women engineering students, the TalentSprint WE program is a collaboration with Google and offers an intensive tech upskilling curriculum along with mentorship and networking with top tech professionals. If you identify as a woman in tech, this is one of the most impactful programs you can join — it levels the playing field and arms you with real, industry-relevant skills from your very first year.
📌 Fresher Action Plan: Scholarships
Apply early. Apply often. Don’t self-select out.
Many students assume they won’t qualify and never apply. The worst they can say is no. Start building your scholarship profile from Day 1 of your B.Tech — that means maintaining your GPA, documenting extracurriculars, and crafting a compelling personal statement.
Section 2: The Ultimate Placement Prep Toolkit 💻
Landing a placement at a top tech company like Amazon doesn’t happen by accident. It happens because of consistent, structured preparation — starting from your first year, not your final year.
Our guest began her preparation early, and that head start made all the difference. Here’s the exact toolkit she and thousands of successful placement students swear by.
📚 Step 1: Build Your Programming Foundation
Before you can solve complex DSA problems, you need rock-solid fundamentals. These resources will take you from zero to confident:
🌐 W3Schools
The classic reference point for web technologies and programming basics. W3Schools is perfect for interactive, bite-sized learning across HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Python, SQL, and more. If you’re a complete beginner or need to quickly look up syntax, this is your go-to. Think of it as your always-available textbook that never judges you for asking basic questions.
📘 C Programming / Foundation Playlist (Jenny’s Lectures CS IT)
This YouTube playlist is widely regarded as one of the best free resources for building a strong foundation in C programming and core CS concepts in Hindi/English. Ideal for first-year students who are just getting started, it covers everything from variables and loops to functions and pointers — the building blocks for everything that comes later.
🧠 Step 2: Master Data Structures & Algorithms (DSA)
DSA is the backbone of every technical interview — at Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and virtually every top tech company. You cannot skip this. Period.
📗 GeeksforGeeks (GfG)
GeeksforGeeks is the Wikipedia of computer science for engineering students. It has detailed explanations, pseudocode, and full implementations for nearly every algorithm and data structure you’ll ever need. Use it to understand concepts deeply, look up topics before interviews, and practice problems organized by difficulty and company.
🎯 DSA Complete Playlist (Strivers A2Z-DSA Course)
This is arguably the most recommended free DSA playlist in the Indian engineering community. It covers Arrays, Linked Lists, Trees, Graphs, Dynamic Programming, and more — all with clear explanations and coding walkthroughs. This playlist, combined with consistent practice, is how countless students cracked top-tier placements.
💪 LeetCode
When you’re ready to test your skills, LeetCode is where the real preparation happens. It hosts thousands of coding problems used directly in technical interviews — and yes, Amazon uses LeetCode-style questions. Start with Easy problems, build consistency, then move to Medium and Hard. The goal isn’t to solve 1,000 problems; it’s to truly understand patterns.
💡 Pro Tip: Aim for at least 1–2 LeetCode problems daily from your second year onward. Consistency beats intensity every single time.
🗺️ Placement Prep Roadmap at a Glance
| Year | Focus Area | Key Resources |
|---|---|---|
| 1st Year | Programming Fundamentals, C/Python, web dev | W3Schools, C Foundation Playlist |
| 2nd Year | DSA, Object-Oriented Programming | DSA Playlist, GeeksforGeeks |
| 3rd Year | LeetCode Practice, Projects, Internships | LeetCode, GitHub Projects |
| 4th Year | Mock Interviews, Competitive Coding, Resume | GfG, LeetCode, LinkedIn |
Section 3: Why Building Projects Matters (And Where to Start) 🛠️
Here’s a truth that many students learn too late: your degree gets you the interview; your projects get you the job.
Technical interviewers want to see that you can apply what you’ve learned, not just recite it. A strong project portfolio demonstrates initiative, problem-solving ability, and real-world thinking — the exact qualities that companies like Amazon look for.
🤔 “But I Don’t Know What to Build!”
This is the most common roadblock, and it’s completely understandable. You don’t need to invent the next unicorn startup. You need to build something functional and demonstrate that you understand how it works.
Great project ideas for placement:
- A personal portfolio website
- A to-do list app with a database backend
- A weather app using an API
- A simple e-commerce product page
- A basic machine learning model for data prediction
The key? Build it yourself. Don’t copy-paste code you don’t understand.
🔧 Project-Based Learning Resource
📦 Practical Tutorials — Project-Based Learning Repository
This is a goldmine GitHub repository curated by the developer community. It organizes hundreds of free, hands-on project tutorials across every major language and technology — Python, JavaScript, Java, C++, web development, machine learning, and more. Each tutorial walks you through building a real project from scratch, so you learn by doing rather than just watching.
Bookmark this repository now. Seriously. It’s one of the most valuable free resources on the internet for engineering students.
🚀 How to Make Your Projects Stand Out
Beyond just building, here’s how to make your projects count:
- Push everything to GitHub — your GitHub profile is your technical resume
- Write a clear README — explain what the project does, how to run it, and what you learned
- Deploy it online — use Vercel, Netlify, or Render to make it accessible with a link
- Talk about it confidently — in interviews, be ready to walk through every line and every decision
- Pick problems you care about — passion projects are more memorable and more fun to build
🏆 The Big Picture: What Our Guest Did Right
Looking back at our guest’s journey through the AFE scholarship to the Amazon internship, a few things stand out as her competitive advantages:
- ✅ She applied for scholarships early without assuming she wouldn’t qualify
- ✅ She built her DSA skills consistently over time, not in a last-minute panic
- ✅ She leveraged her mentorship to get clear direction on what actually matters in placements
- ✅ She built projects to demonstrate practical application of her skills
- ✅ She started in her second year — giving herself time to grow, fail, and improve
You have the same 24 hours she did. The question is what you do with them.
🎯 Conclusion: Your Journey Starts Today
If there’s one thing to take away from this blog and our podcast episode, it’s this: the opportunities are out there, but they won’t come looking for you.
The AFE scholarship didn’t find our guest — she found it. The Amazon internship didn’t fall into her lap — she earned it through months of preparation, mentorship, and consistent effort. And now, she’s sharing that roadmap with you.
Here’s your action plan, starting today:
- Bookmark and apply to the scholarships listed above — especially if you’re a fresher
- Start the C Programming Foundation playlist if you’re new to coding
- Begin the DSA playlist and commit to daily practice on LeetCode
- Pick one project idea and start building — imperfect action beats perfect inaction
- Watch the full podcast episode to hear every detail of her journey, including that Amazon stipend number that will blow your mind! 🎙️
📺 Watch the Full Podcast Episode
/PODCASTE VIDEO/
Don’t just read about it — hear it directly from someone who lived it. She breaks down her preparation strategy, what the AFE program is really like, how the Amazon interview process works, and yes — that stipend reveal you’ve been waiting for.
💬 Let’s Keep the Conversation Going!
If this blog helped you, here’s how you can support Geethu Talks:
- 🔔 Subscribe to our YouTube channel so you never miss an episode
- ❤️ Share this blog with your batchmates, juniors, and anyone who needs to see it
- 💬 Drop a comment below — What’s your biggest challenge when it comes to placements or scholarships? Let’s talk about it!
- 📲 Follow us on Instagram for daily tips, scholarship alerts, and more
Your dream placement is closer than you think. Now go get it. 💪
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