AICTE data reported this year shows 3,90,245 seats filled in computer science and allied streams, inside a total B.Tech enrolment of 12.53 lakh — the highest in eight years and a 67% increase over 2017-18. Against that intake, exactly two large-company internship programmes are scoped to your second year rather than your third. Both are worth applying to. Neither is a plan, and confusing the two is how a second year gets spent waiting.
Key takeaways
- Microsoft’s Explore internship runs a dedicated second-year application that includes India — eight weeks here, twelve in the US.
- Google’s STEP internship in India asks candidates to be currently in their second year of a bachelor’s programme, based out of Bengaluru or Telangana.
- Both are single-intake, fixed-city, one-deadline-a-year programmes. Applying is cheap; depending on them is not.
- Internship postings on Handshake fell more than 15% between January 2023 and January 2025 while applicant share rose — the funnel is tightening as underclassmen enter it earlier.
The two programmes, as their owners describe them
Start with the primary sources rather than the aggregator blogs that rewrite them every August. Microsoft’s careers site splits Explore into two applications, and states that the second one is intended for candidates in their second year of a bachelor’s degree programme in the United States, Canada, Mexico or India. It runs eight weeks in India against twelve in the US, places you on a specific product team rather than rotating you, and asks only that you have completed an introduction to computer science course and one semester of calculus. A computer science major is not required. Note how low that academic bar is — this programme is not screening for coursework.
Google’s STEP internship is the other one. Coverage of the India cycle reports that candidates should currently be in their second year of study enrolled in a bachelor’s programme, with the Bengaluru and Telangana offices as the locations and a 10 December application deadline. STEP is explicitly a development programme aimed at widening who enters software engineering, which shapes who gets priority in selection — check the current posting’s own wording each cycle, because that framing has been revised more than once.
Two things follow from reading both pages carefully. Neither programme asks for prior internship experience, because the whole point is that you do not have any. And both are anchored to specific cities and a single annual intake, which is precisely why they cannot be your only route.
The window is moving earlier every year
The timing failure is more common than the rejection. Handshake’s 2026 internship report describes the shift bluntly: activity now peaks in early fall across class years, seniors apply sooner, underclassmen enter earlier, and even first-years are beginning to submit internship applications in their first semester. That is the environment your application lands in. If you start looking in January because that is when your seniors started talking about summer, the second-year-scoped seats are already allocated.
The supply side is moving the other way. Handshake’s Internships Index found that internship postings declined by more than 15% between January 2023 and January 2025, while 41% of the Class of 2025 had applied to at least one internship by January 2025, up from 34% of the Class of 2023. Fewer postings, more applicants, entering earlier. None of that is a reason to skip the two programmes. It is a reason not to make them the whole strategy.
The second track nobody diarises
The programmes are legible: a page, a deadline, a name your parents recognise. That legibility is exactly why they are crowded. The other track has no page and no deadline — small companies where the founder is the hiring manager, who do not run an early-career programme, do not filter on year of study, and are not on anyone’s calendar. They hire when they need a specific thing done this month. To them, a second-year who has shipped something real is an ordinary candidate rather than an exception, which is a sentence that is not true anywhere inside a structured programme.
That track also has a shape the programmes do not: part-time and remote, running alongside term. A US startup that needs ten to fifteen hours a week from someone competent does not care which semester you are in, and the time zone gap turns into overnight progress rather than a problem. The work of getting there is unglamorous — research a company properly, use the product, write to a human being — and it is the only part of your second year that is fully within your control.
The second-year application playbook
- Open both official pages in August and re-read them yourself. Eligibility wording, locations and deadlines get revised between cycles, and every aggregator post you will find is a copy of last year’s copy.
- Put the deadlines in a calendar with a four-week warning. Autumn is when the intake happens; a December cut-off means an autumn application, not a winter one.
- Apply the week applications open. These are single-intake programmes and interest builds fast after a posting goes live. Being early costs nothing.
- Ship one thing strangers can use before you apply anywhere. A deployed link beats a repository, and both beat a list of course names. It is also the only asset that works on both tracks at once.
- Run outreach in parallel, from day one. Not after the rejections. A small weekly number of genuinely researched emails to small companies, asking for part-time hours during term.
- Keep a decision log for whatever you build. Not a changelog — the choices and the reasons. Eighteen months later that log is what lets you explain your own work in an interview, which is the part nobody can fake for you.
Two seats, or the work that travels
An application to a programme built for your year is a good use of an afternoon. What it is not is evidence. The thing that carries across every route — the branded programme, the founder’s inbox, the third-year internship that actually converts — is verified proof that you built something and can account for every decision in it. That is the whole of what Tierones checks: who you are, where you study, and what you have actually shipped, so a small team can evaluate your work without taking any of it on faith. If you want the mechanics of the off-campus route, read how a second-year internship actually gets sourced, and see what gets verified at Tierones profile.
FAQ
Which internship programmes accept 2nd year students in India?
Two big-tech programmes are scoped to early-year undergraduates. Microsoft’s Explore internship runs a separate second-year application covering the United States, Canada, Mexico and India, lasting eight weeks here against twelve in the US. Google’s STEP internship in India asks candidates to be currently in their second year of a bachelor’s programme, and has been offered from Bengaluru and Telangana. Everything else open to you in second year is off campus and self-sourced.
When should a 2nd year student apply for these programmes?
Early autumn, and earlier than feels reasonable. Coverage of Google’s India STEP cycle has put the deadline as early as 10 December, so the window opens months before that. Handshake’s 2026 report found activity now peaks in early fall across class years, with underclassmen entering sooner and even first-years applying in their first semester. Check the official careers pages from August rather than waiting for a campus announcement.
What do I do if I don’t get into Google STEP or Microsoft Explore?
Treat that as the base case and build the other track in parallel. Both run one intake a year, in fixed cities, at two companies — none of which you control. What you do control is a shipped project a stranger can open in a browser plus direct outreach to small companies where the founder is the hiring manager and nobody filters on year of study. Those roles are frequently part-time and remote, which fits alongside coursework.
Second year at an IIT, NIT or IIIT with something shipped? Sign up free — you’ll need your .ac.in email and your GitHub, and nothing else.