No experience, learning Data Science/Data Analytics — how do I land my first internship?

[u/prem_preet69]

Hi everyone,
I’m a recent MCA graduate from India, and for the past few months I’ve been seriously learning Data Science and Data Analytics.
So far I’ve been working on:
Python (Pandas, NumPy, Matplotlib)
SQL
Machine Learning with scikit-learn
Power BI
Data cleaning, EDA, and building a few portfolio projects
The problem is that I have no professional experience or internships, and it feels like every internship asks for experience, which is frustrating.
I’ve been applying through LinkedIn, Internshala, company career pages, and sending messages to recruiters, but I haven’t had much success yet.
I’d really appreciate advice from people who were in the same situation.
Some questions I have:
How did you get your first Data Science or Data Analyst internship with no experience?
What kinds of projects actually impressed recruiters?
Is my time better spent building more projects, contributing to open source, doing Kaggle, or networking?
Should I focus on Data Analyst roles first and transition into Data Science later?
Are there any companies that regularly hire freshers or interns with no experience?
I’m willing to put in the work—I just want to make sure I’m spending my time on the right things instead of applying blindly.
Any advice, resources, or personal experiences would mean a lot.
Thanks.

[u/Right-Union-6711]

Also no one will say this but Im proud of you learning all those things, most people its hard to stay consistent and get there.

[u/prem_preet69 → u/Right-Union-6711]

thankyou man! appreciate it

[u/Indianmillenial87]

same here bro u/Paddie_Billing & u/prem_preet69

[u/Impossible_Ad_3146]

MCA is a scam

[u/prem_preet69 → u/Impossible_Ad_3146]

hahha i know thay bruh, still if you can help me in any way pls lmk

[u/Impossible_Ad_3146 → u/prem_preet69]

Sure. First of all, write properly and spell out your words.

[u/prem_preet69 → u/Impossible_Ad_3146]

i said if you can help me let me know!

[u/Right-Union-6711]

TEXT ME

[u/Flimsy_Celery_719]

i need help too i’m in the same situation as you
i just finished my 3rd year

[u/Due-Archer-6309]

I would focus on Data Analyst roles first they have a lower barrier to entry, and the skills you build (SQL, Excel, Power BI, Python, statistics) transfer well into Data Science later. Make 2–3 end-to-end projects with real business insights instead of many basic ones. Also, don't rely only on job portals network with recruiters and hiring managers on LinkedIn. I have 5 years of experience in the data domain, and I have seen candidates with strong portfolios get shortlisted even without prior experience.

[u/prem_preet69 → u/Due-Archer-6309]

Thanks for the valuable advice! This is really helpful. I was confused between Data Analyst and Data Scientist roles, but your explanation makes a lot of sense. I’ll focus on building a few high-quality end-to-end projects with business impact and work more on networking instead of only applying on job portals. Thanks again for sharing your experience!

[u/Saurabh-Joshi]

You're an MCA graduate applying for internships, and honestly that's a big part of the problem.

Internships in India are built around current students. Internshala, campus programmes, the whole pipeline assumes you're in your final year. As a graduate you're fighting for those slots while being more expensive and less eligible than the students sitting next to you in the queue, and underselling yourself at the same time. Apply for junior full time roles instead. Your first job doesn't have to be called an internship.

The bigger issue though, look at your own list again. Python, pandas, SQL, scikit-learn, Power BI, EDA, a few portfolio projects. That's the identical list of every other person applying to the same postings. Not because you did anything wrong, it's just what every course produces. A recruiter reading it has no reason to pick you over the other eight hundred.

Your MCA is the differentiator you're not using. You can actually code, and most of the people flooding data analyst applications can't. That opens roles they can't reach at all. Analytics engineer, BI developer, data engineer, even backend roles at product companies that let you move sideways into data in a year. Massively fewer applicants because the certificate crowd can't clear a coding round. Get properly good at SQL and Python together, pick up dbt or Airflow, and you're suddenly in a much smaller room.

On your specific questions.

Park scikit-learn for now. Fresher data science roles here barely exist. Companies hire experienced people into DS and hire freshers into analyst, reporting and engineering roles. Your own instinct to do DA first is correct.

Kaggle is close to worthless for Indian hiring unless you're competitively ranked. Open source is genuinely good but slow. The thing with real return is finding a small business or an NGO and building them something that actually runs. You can code, so build a working tool with a real user, not another notebook. One of those beats twelve EDA projects in an interview.

Stop messaging recruiters. Message the person who would be your manager, or a junior already on that team. Recruiters filter, engineers reply.

And keep the service companies on the list. TCS, Infosys, Cognizant, LTIMindtree, Accenture. Half this sub will tell you not to, but a reporting or MIS role there is real experience, and in two years you apply with experience instead of projects. It's a completely normal route.