Exchange Diaries  

Why do you think FT is important? How was your experience?

Alok:

During my FT, I gained an entirely different outlook on many things. The work atmosphere was incredible. The professor heard me out, acknowledged my suggestions and answered my questions, even the silliest ones. He would simply say ‘Lets try it !’. Eventually, I was able to ask the right questions.

Over there, we are judged on the basis of the result of the work rather than the time spent on the work. I learnt to manage my time better. The labs were open 24x7 and we could work whenever we wished to. My team was very diverse and had people from various places and backgrounds. They were very helpful. It was a unique experience working with them.
One thing I liked very much was the work-life balance. People had a great life outside of their work which in turn helped them work better.

Before going to FT, I was confused whether to go into research or a techno-managerial career. FT helped me sort things out.
If you are interested in a career research, FT is a thing you must do. It would add to your knowledge and credentials greatly. Having an FT from a distinguished professor makes things brighter for research opportunities.

How did you manage your finances?

Alok :
Managing finances wasn’t an issue because of the scholarship that I got due to the SN Bose scholarship program. Also, the professor under whom I worked offered me an additional stipend.

Tell us about the scholarship program.

Alok:
The SN Bose scholarship program is a program sponsored by the Department of Science and Technology, Govt. of India. It requires you to be DR 1 or DR 2 and is very competitive, attracting a lot of applications from all over the country. I applied for the program, just for the sake of applying, but actually got selected. Under the program, you are provided a stipend, the round trip fare and health care insurance.

How did you apply for the FT?

Alok:
Once I got the scholarship, it was easy to find a professor as professors prefer candidates with funding and the scholarship program is one of the most prestigious ones. I mailed around 40 professors and got quite a few replies. I chose Penn State finally.

How did you decide in your early second year which field you were interested in and wanted to pursue in you FT?

Alok:
I have been interested in nanotechnology from my school days and used to follow the developments. It came naturally to me that I should do a project in it.

On a lighter note, how was your stay in the US?

Alok:
It was great. I enjoyed a lot. I toured New York, Philadelphia and a couple other major cities which were a few hours from the institute. I learnt to cook there. I cooked my own food. I kind-of missed India, though.

What would you suggest to our fellow KGPians who aspire to go for an FT?

Alok:
Maintain a good CG of at least 8.5. Find out your interest as early as you can and focus on that thing as much as you can. Also, you should look forward to pursue some projects in the areas of your interest.

Having a good research project gives you an edge over other applicants in almost all scenarios. The main thing is to have patience and persevere till you reach your final goal. Other than that, one should not just focus on academics but also have an overall all-round personality.

1. Hello Aditi , first of all congratulations on your FT at such a elite institute. Since we have
already mentioned all your credentials above we would straight away like to ask you about
the way you got FT
“this is a really tough job especially if you are a second-year student. The first thing you got
to do is make a proper database of all the professors who are doing research in the field you
are doing research in. Well QS ranking are the best way to search for all elite university. In
my case it was just 15 professors that I mailed – the reason being that I already had a
recommendation from a professor from my department – else people mail a couple of 100-
1000 professors. Also my DR1 rank and projects also contributed a lot. A general advice to
one and all to have try and get a CGPA above 8.5 if they aim to get an FT. I am really glad to
hear about the initiative taken by IR CELL to start a FTP program and now on I am sure this
horrendous amount of work that earlier students needed to do would be reduced”
2. Thank You for that , now in this last question would you please elaborate on your
experience out there and tell us about the pros and cons of doing a FT
“Surely, the experience was amazing . I mean going to a new place, travelling to new
locations and exploring new things along with doing research was amazing. The best part of
the research work there was that my voice was heard . Every input of mine was given
consideration and that was amazing. Harbour visits there were amazing. I even got to see
the largest container ship, which was from China but at that point was at Boston. Also not to

forget to mention that my professor was very kind. In order to make me feel comforted and
ensure my safety, I was made to share my room with an Indian student. ALL in all, I really had
a wonderful experience and there is no con as such I advise every student to try for FT.

How did you get your FT?

Spandan:

Basically, the computer science department has ties with National Tsing Hua University through Industrial Technology Research Institute. I was selected through this programme.

What do you think is the most important factor for selection (for the programme)?

Spandan:

For programmes like this, CGPA is the most important criteria. In this programme,mostly the top three departmental toppers are usually recommended by the professors. My case is a bit exceptional. I was chosen because I had participated in the Google Summer of Code in my second year.

Under whom did you work?

Spandan:

I was not working under a professor. My internship was in a research park. My overall internship was under Dr. Zhe and Mr Peter Huang and there were other mentors with me all the time

What was your research based on?

Spandan:

My task was to help them run their software with the help of another software called “CHEF”.
I had a first hand on experience of CHEF during my internship in GSOC. So,I was the one chosen for this project.

What was your overall experience during your FT?

Spandan:

It was an enriching experience. The amalgamation of research and industrial applications was amazing to experience.The working environment was very friendly and healthy. Everyone was tremendously supportive and caring.Though we faced some problems in communicating with people, but the overall experience was ecstatic. We travelled a lot. Taiwan’s seas, cliff, beaches and mountains were a treat to our eyes.

How did you manage your expenses?

Spandan:

It was easy for me to manage the expenses as the stipend were enough for it. The accommodation, as well as the air tickets, were arranged by the university itself.

I got nominated from the department on CGPA basis. The program nominated top 3 students from the department and since I had the best CGPA in the department, I was nominated. The project was based on Deep Learning. I got to know about the details of the project and my mentor after I reached there. It was an enjoyable experience. They don’t expect UG students to be very knowledgeable and explain everything from basics. I got to learn new things in a beautiful country and discovered myself beyond the barriers of my course. The perks of working at ITRI is that they pay you a lot of money even if you are working as an intern. I got over 1 lakh rupees over my stay and got accommodation at a place that was no less than a 5 star hotel. I got subsidised food there and thus I could save some money out of what I got. I got to meet a lot of international students from different parts of the world. It helped me to get an insight into their culture and helped me to improve my communication skills. People outside India are physically more fit and that encouraged me a lot.

My work was related to Natural Language Processor(NLP). I had a cubicle of my own there. I had no prior knowledge about my project. I got to learn a lot. They didn’t expect us to contribute a lot to the project, their main motive was that students like us get information about such topics so that they can contribute to the field later. They want to expose UG students to the upcoming technologies. There is an amazing perception of IIT’s over there. They want more and more IITians to apply for their internship, contribute to their project and learn something new.

There are two ways by which you can apply:
If you are a CSE student and your CGPA is in top 3
Through their online portal

We expected that we would be having deadlines for the work we do and their would be time restrictions, but they were very cool about it. As long as you are doing your work you don’t need to worry about such things. I used to leave at 5pm on wednesdays to play football and they had no problem with it. I believe that there are a lot of opportunities of foreign training for the students of IIT but only a few students get a chance to go for an FT as many of us don’t apply and even if some apply they do so through random mailing and don’t even mention their field of interest.

The prime concern should be choosing a field of interest in which you want to go for a foreign training. I think when you are doing a project in a foreign country in better living conditions and great facilities, it will definitely add to the output.That is why I think an FT is important. I worked under a mentor who was very helpful, he ensured that we learn something from the project. Meeting new people, interacting with them, visiting new places and learning new things made my stay in Taiwan an amazing experience.

Hi guys! My name is Nikhil Damle and I am currently a final year undergraduate student pursuing my B.Tech. in Manufacturing Science and Engineering from the Department of Mechanical Engineering.

Host University

At the end of my third year, I interned at the National University of Singapore (NUS) for a period of two and a half months. I joined one of the labs at NUS as an undergraduate summer research intern and was assigned in assisting my Ph.D. supervisor with his thesis.

Motive behind going for an FT

My main motive behind going for an FT was to develop a global perspective of research in the field of my interest while gaining international exposure.

How did you get selected for the FT ?

I emailed my CV to the professor working in the field of my interest, while expressing my interest to join his lab as an intern during the summers along with a strong statement of purpose.

How was the host university in terms of research and campus life?

NUS has faculty working in different areas including engineering, medicine, law, and business. There is some pioneering research going on in different fields and the labs are full of state of the art experimental equipment. The professors at NUS are very friendly and genuinely want their interns to learn more than getting there work done.

In terms of campus life, NUS is great. After a tiring day, the students can indulge in various activities like karate, rock climbing, fencing, dance, music; you name it and they have it!

Total expenditure and scholarship

NUS does offer a scholarship to interns from IITs who have a good academic record, however, these scholarships are limited. If you aspire to intern at NUS, I would suggest you start emailing the professors as soon as possible so that your chances of securing the scholarship are higher. Singapore is an expensive country and the scholarship is just enough if you use your funds judiciously.

Did the university provide accommodation?

No, NUS does not provide accommodation.

General Funda

A foreign internship is a very enriching experience. For the past 19-20 years, we have been interacting with the same kind of people and have formed a social bubble for ourselves. Staying abroad for 2-2.5 months, interacting with people with different nationalities, helps you gain a global perspective. If you are interested in research, I urge you to go for an FT. The path to securing an FT is frustrating but the experience is totally worth the fight you have to put up. Just go for it!

Starting from the trace---How did you decide at this point in which field are you interested?

As I did my foreign internship at the end of my third year, I had completed a few departmental courses and was fortunate enough to have found my passion in one of them. For everyone aspiring of an FT, I would suggest that you go for a field you find interesting. It doesn’t matter which department you belong to.

I applied to this FT through mailing, professors replied to my emails, they were looking for undergraduate interns. Later, I got the Charpak Research Internship Scholarship Award.It added to the financial support and made it more affordable for me. Such kind of scholarships encourage more and more people to go for FT’s and a structured program that can arrange such scholarships will be of great help.

An FT is very important in your undergraduate academic career, especially when you are inclined towards research as it introduces you to the research environment outside India. You also get a chance to visit a new place and interact with new people. It also helps you to know about the work culture outside India.

The main difference is in the attitude of the people towards work. Everything is properly structured and disciplined. This helps in optimizing the output. We had regular meetings and a schedule that kept us on track.

My FT was in the field of Deep Learning, it's major concern was to use Deep Learning in the medical domain. My lab was associated with the hospital in Strasbourg,IEHU. The lab had an operating room and whatever we developed was used in the operating room.
We had one professor in our research group to guide us.It was a small research group called KAMA.The professor was interested in our work and he made sure that whatever we do gets published. The professors give special attention to undergraduates there and ensure that whatever research we are working on goes in the right direction and we learn enough that we can carry our work forward.

People over there didn’t know about IIT’s and other colleges in India, they were interested in our CV’s to know what work we can do and what are our accomplishments. So, the college didn’t make much difference.I think people should not over-represent themselves in their CV’s because it creates a lot of expectations in the professors and then they are not able to live up to those expectations. It will create a bad impact on our college over there.

I think there should be some kind of a portal that can help students in IIT to apply for FT’s as continuous mailing does not create a good impact of the students.
I was getting $510 from the institute and $350 from the scholarship, so it was not very difficult for me to cover the expenses but those who don’t get such scholarships may find it difficult to do so.
I really want to encourage people to go for FT’s, it is an amazing experience, not only because of the work. I got a chance to meet new people at a new place and worked in a different environment. I hope more and more students go for FT’s and promote the research culture of IIT KGP.

Hi! I am Madhukar Thalore from the Civil Engineering department. I am currently a 3rd Year Undergraduate and I did my Foreign Research Internship at National University of Singapore during the summer break of 2017. My project was based on Robotic Manipulator which revolved around design and development of a Robotic System during dissassembly and I worked in the Advanced Robotics Centre (ARC) of Mechanical Department of NUS.

Work Ethics

I had the privilege to work at the Advanced Robotics Centre and the best thing that I came across there was the work ethics. I had access to the laboratory throughout the day with the smart card that was issued to me – perfect flexibility one can look out for. The Professor kept a regular check at our work through round table conferences and discussions over coffee. The project that I was working on required the knowledge of Java and since I wasn’t well aware of the same at the start of my internship, the Senior Engineer working with me made sure that I learnt Java well enough so that I can contribute better towards their research work. I had to attend all the meetings but there was no time constraint for working in the laboratory. All in all, since the Robotic Manipulator was very new to ARC and I was the first one to explore it’s applications, it was made sure that I learnt something as well as contributed well enough.The work was documented in the form of a detailed report as per the instructions of the professor so that any new intern working on the same would get a head-start.

World Class Facilities

There are a total of 16 labs in the Mechanical Department. These labs are equipped with world class machinery and receive huge funding. If someone is working there on a project and demand a certain equipment not available in the laboratory, it will be acquired promptly. The laboratory environment and people down there proved out to be a great source of inspiration during the research work. The amazing facilities help a lot in increasing the work efficiency.

Cultural Differences

The main difference is the difference in the language. Most of the people in Singapore are not proficient in English. Although the Professors, Senior Engineers and native students are proficient in English, the locals are not that good at it. So, there was a lack of a common language for communication with the locals.

Reputation of IIT

IIT’s have a great reputation in NUS as the professors know about the level of difficulty of JEE question paper. Some of my friends got their application selected because they were willing to work on the project and they were from IIT.

Scholarship

There are terms between IIT’s and NUS due to which students working on research projects receive a scholarship. I received an allowance of $ 30/ day during my course of stay, but 2 months in Singapore costs a huge amount. There are many universities in Europe and United States that offer stipends but it is not the case with NUS.

In conclusion, I think that more and more students should take interest in research and apply for FT’s and go for a research internship abroad. It is a great experience and adds so much value to your profile.

"The overall experience was fulfilling from all the aspects. Fortunately enough, I was allotted a project based on my micro-specialisation in Reliability and Systems Engineering. Right from the very first day, I was handed over a rough plan of the internship, the expectations, the deliverables and necessary documentation.

Honestly, never in my life I ever felt so organised with my work. We had weekly meetings with the research group to keep a track of the progress. The project that I worked on has a significant contribution in building my career profile in modelling and simulation of system.

Apart from the work, I thoroughly enjoyed the weekends exploring new cities.

The most important takeaway of the internship (apart from the technical knowledge I gained) was to learn how to be productive both at work and enjoyment."

The experience was better than expected. The approach to research was truly world class and the people were really friendly. Apart from the work, UK exploration on weekends defined the FT experience for me.

It was indeed a career defining event. The practical experience and knowledges gained during the internship was invaluable. Profesdor Maksimovic’s recommendation was one of the main driving factors in my PhD application.

"This internship was a very wholesome experience, not only in terms of exposure to world-class research but also in terms of exploring a totally different culture and meeting people from various countries.
My research project was based on optimizing deep neural networks used for deciphering the body pose of clinicians in the operating room. This was a part of a larger project underway at the lab to come up with techniques to reduce radiation exposure to clinicians during cancer treatment. With such a heavy focus on the medical domain, the lab was situated in the university hospital and I was given access to all the data from past surgeries and treatments to work on. The computational resources available were also top of the class with multiple GPUs available at my disposal to train the models on. Along with such facilities, I was very fortunate to have a wonderful group of people around with the professor and research scholars of the lab guiding me every step of the way while allowing ample room for my own inputs and encouraging creative solutions. I was included in all the weekly meetings as well which exposed me to the work of other researchers aside from having one-on-one discussions with the professor regarding my own project. The research scholars of the lab were very friendly and included me in activities outside of the lab as well and by the end of three months, we had become good friends and I’m still in touch with them.
Besides the work, being in a place with a vastly different culture than India widened my perspectives and introduced me to people from all across the globe. Hangout sessions included people from Italy and France to Turkey and Japan. Such a multicultural experience was extremely fun and a learning opportunity like no other. It is indeed a very unique experience to be invited to birthday parties where ‘Happy Birthday’ is sung in 9 different languages and realizing that the tune is the same in all of them except in Hindi! Despite the language barriers which manifested itself at times, people were always welcoming and eager to share their own culture and I made some great friends during my time in Strasbourg. All this was over and above the fact that Europe is an extremely beautiful place and the weekends off allowed me to travel and explore most of the countries in Western Europe with my favourites being Italy and Switzerland. Overall, the three months not only helped me understand the world of research and academia much better but also allowed me to travel and meet incredible people, something an internship elsewhere would not have offered. "

Summer internship at CMU was a career defining moment for me. It inspired me to pursue higher studies in the same research area. The professor was very friendly and made me feel comfortable which allowed me to work with full potential. The PhD students working there with me were from different parts of the world and I had a lifetime of experience talking to them about their countries and discussing India with them. The university atmosphere was very happening and you can find new and exciting project displays if you roam around the campus. Pittsburgh was also full of tourist spots and I made a point of exploring it during weekends. You can also go to Washington DC, New York and Niagara falls as they are quite near. I also met other interns from different countries and discussed the work they are doing. Overall, it was a great experience.

It was a great exposure. Working with the professor and in a well-equipped lab gave me a deeper insight about food processing. Food engineering became more interesting after this intern experience. A new environment and culture also transformed my personality.