Intern ke Fundae

Electrical Engineering Society recently organised Intern ke Fundae. For those of you who may have missed it, here is the summary of what our speakers, all of whom had interned in various top-notch companies like Samsung, DB, Xerox, ITC, etc, had to share with us:

Regarding the interview process:
Almost all of the interview processes that the speakers went through included:
• CV shortlisting on the basis of projects, Positions of Responsibility
• Group discussions: Doing decently well would require you to speak well and raise enough (4-5) good points; top 5-6 speakers are generally selected for interview rounds
• Coding interns had a basic coding test to test your skills. Financial interns will have some basic questions from finance, statistics, and probability.
• First round of interview was, for most of the speakers here who applied to technical interns, with a recent graduate from one of the IIT’s, who would basically ask you questions from your projects and POR’s, to see if you really worked on them.
• Second round of interview was with a higher level member, usually a manager.
• Final interview may be with your HR manager, who will check if you are a good fit for the company.
• Technical interviews, which are mainly meant to check your thought process, and how you approach a particular problem. Do not panic if you cannot get all the answers correct. The interviewer wishes to understand whether you can find new approaches to solve a problem which you have not solved before.
• Interviews require good communication skills. Good communication with interviewer will get you the interview. ;)

Regarding their internship:
Though specifics vary from internship to internship, the following points seemed common to almost all:
• The internship lasted the whole of summer vacations.
• You are supposed to work hard. Many of the speakers had worked around 8-10 hours every day, some for 6 days a week.
• You do enjoy the perks of the job. The more responsibilities you have, better the perks you enjoy.
• Your job and your boss do expect a lot from you.
• You do get to enjoy a lot too.
• Many of the interns do get pre placement offers ( PPO’s ) from the company too. Again, specifics vary from company to company.

Since the interview focuses a lot on your CV, our speakers had some great tips to share with us:
• Highlight your positions of responsibilities and your projects. But be truthful about them, as if you are asked about something in your CV which you can’t satisfactorily reply to, it will leave a bad impression on the interviewer.
• Specify the most recent and/ or the most significant projects/POR’s first. Put your activities during your college time ahead of school ones.
• If you have great CGPA do highlight it in your CV.
• Do tinker your CV to align with the companies where you are applying to.
• Most importantly, do GET A REVIEW of your CV from your seniors! They can help you make a much better CV!
• Upload your CV on the TnP portal. You could also see the sample CV’s on the site.

Some general tips:
• Some companies will have some criteria of CGPA. for example few companies had CGPA requirement > 7.5
• For coding interns, good knowledge of data structures and algorithms is essential.
• For financial interns, basic knowledge of finance and economics is needed.
• Practice group discussions. You can learn the basic fundae from Youtube.

Here are some pics from our session on Industrial Internship:

Electrical Engineering Society recently organised Intern ke Fundae, where we had seniors who had interned at top research institutes like Max Planck Institute of Physics, National University of Singapore, EPFL Switzerland. Some of them also did amazing projects in IITD under SURA

Second yearites have two options with respect to research interns
They can do a project in IIT as a part of Summer Undergraduate Research Award (SURA). They can also pursue a summer project under the guidance of a professor in IIT Delhi.
They could also apply to foreign universities and professors to apply for a foreign intern
For a project or SURA at IIT Delhi, they have to contact a professor with an idea of their own which they want to work on, or work on a project that the professor is himself working on. For pursuing a SURA, the project proposal is to be submitted and subsequently, a presentation has to be given to a committee of professors from the department. The committee tests their knowledge and the feasibility of the project, and then decides whether the project would be shortlisted under SURA.

Second method (Foreign Research Interns) involves mailing and contacting professors from other universities, asking them to take them as research interns in their project. This method is largely dependent on luck and timing, as well as the person’s profile, CV and connections. It is a process involving lots of negotiations between professors and students, and can often make the person choose between stipends and great research institutes.
However it has a plus side, which is travelling and exploring new places. However some of our speakers say that good quality research is difficult in foreign universities, given the short amount of time( ~ 1.5-2 months ) that they effectively get in the research institutes.
However, the second option requires a LOT of perseverance and patience! For Third year interns, the TnP can provide some offers of research interns, however they still have to take the second option which second yearites take.

Their tips:
• Customise and tinker your CV and cover letter according to the professor you are mailing.
• Send the mails at the professor’s office hours. Use scheduler apps and gmail extensions like sidekick for this.
• Do not use IIT email id.
• Take the relevant courses and highlight them in your CV
• Learn Matlab, Python, Machine learning, as they can help.
• Do not mail too many professors of the same institute, as it could work against you.
• Apply for visa early on, if you are applying for foreign interns.
• Do check if your seniors have worked in that institute in that field. It may be easier to get the intern based on the fact that the professors may have positive outlook towards people from same institute as their ex-research intern
• Thoroughly research a professor’s areas of interest and choose wisely. This applies to all professors, both inside and outside IIT.
• For projects in IIT, you need to have tremendous self motivation and focus, as the SURA structure is not restricted and it depends on how you want to work your project out. BE CAREFUL otherwise you may end up wasting a portion of your time, and the research work may not be great. Foreign interns may have a structure of the research work, and strict deadlines. So, choose whichever is a better fit for you.
• Ask for a formal, written letter of acceptance for the foreign research intern, as until then nothing is fixed and can change on the whims of the professor. Even after that, it can change, but that is rare.
• Do discuss the stipend and see how much you can afford. It is okay to go without a stipend being offered, if you are willing to pay all of the money for the intern. However, research without stipend can be risky, since the professor is not paying you money, he may not give you quality research opportunities.
• You will have to learn a lot, and have to learn it quickly!
• Discuss with your seniors. Seek their help in the CV making process, and any other help you need.
• Persevere and have patience, lots of it!

Here are some pics from our session on Research Internship: