Internships for a CEGian: First look

As soon as one steps into his pre final year every student tries to strengthen his profile. Internships have always been one great savior for students in many ways. First they primarily help a student to test the waters in scientific research. Second it helps them to showcase their talent in proper directed way.

But it all depends on what you choose. An internship after third year is way different from something you might have done at the end in second year. Because third year summer hols provides solid time to prepare for placements and other challenging exams such as CAT,GRE,GMAT. Hence those who suffer terribly from megalomania in college days can take the step ahead.

Caution:
Internships drain both time and energy. They will mostly be occupying or else you are wasting someone’s resources or time. So plan before hand whether your career plan requires an internship or not.

Types:
One should definitely opt for an internship that would help him shape his profile according to his career plan. For that he has to try getting the right kind of internship.

1. Research intern
2. Corporate intern
3. Programming intern

Research Internships:
As the name states these are for people who want to test the waters in research. Some famous organisations that provide these internships abroad include
DAAD – Germany
MITACS GLOBALINK- Canada

DAAD is quite a difficult one to get because of severe competition from IITians. There are lot of intricacies involved. Like IIT professors have tie ups with universities in Germany and hence they directly accept IITians there. Plus all arrangements including stay and other organising has to be carried out by student himself. I am not sure about the sponsorship from DAAD.

Contacts: Vijay Venkatraman, Final Year, Mechanical

MITACS is quite open for Anna University. Last year three students including me applied for MITACS GLOBALINK program and got selected.MITACS is a fully sponsored program and regarded as the most organised internship program by IITians. It gives great exposure to research abroad and sets you the right platform. In turn turned to be the most valuable experience in my Undergraduate study.

Contacts:
Vidhoon Viswanathan  (myself), Final year, IT
Swathi Meenakshi, Final year,EEE
Nagarajan, Final year, Manufacturing

My post on MITACS intern apping is here

Other means to get an internship abroad is to find profs who take intern students and apply manually. This is a very tiresome process indeed. Going through various professor profiles and finding the right one.. then mailing them without spams .. is quite challenging according to me and my seniors.

Contacts:
Naveen Somasundaram,2010 passout,IT

Ramakrishnan Durairajan, 2010 passout, IT

!!MOST IMPORTANT!!

People going for internships abroad should focus on trying to outwit the co-IITians in order to establish the name of CEG. Apart from all enjoyment fruitful results should be produced to achieve that goal.

Within India, there are abundant options and is not as much elusive as the above category.

• IITM,
• IITB,
• IISC,
• IITD,
• IAS,Bangalore are some of the institutions that organise research internship programs with professor guidance and stipend.

Contacts:
Sanjeev Chandran, 2010 passout,CS
Jagdish, Final year,CS

Corporate Interships:
For people eyeing to get placed in great organisations and start their professional carreer head on, corporate internships are the best means to make contacts and prove what they are capable of. In case of corporate internship one should be keen in establishing a good conduct and relationship with the organisation so as to help convert it into a full time opportunity. Since Anna university has no internship term in their schedule all corporates that offer 6 month internships (includes big shots like amazon) are eliminated. Hence it is in turn very challenging to get an internship under branded organisation.

In our college Microsoft hires interns from third years and that seems to be the only option from the institutional side. All other opportunities depend on contacts with seniors and companies and stuff.. For more info on Microsoft intern see these:

My post of Microsoft Intern
Naveen’s blog

Contacts: Naveen,Final year IT

Programming intern
This category of internship is meant to be done in second year summer hols. It is available in our college as well as under RTBI in IITM. It won’t involve research and may or may not have stipends. The goal might be something a little beyond a semester project that is unlikely to be dumped in dustbin after completion.

Contacts: Kannan Venkat, Final year, IT

So be wise in choosing internships and try to reason out the need to do one.
Best Wishes!!