Exchange Diaries  

Utkarsh Sharma | Mechanical Engineering

National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taiwan

Research Area: Electric vehicles and Autonomous robot

Duration: 3 Months

1. How did you apply for FT?

Ans: I applied through the MITACS Scholarship program. They have a MITACS portal which is open September onwards and you need to submit your CV, Recommendations and other relevant documents during that time. Based on the projects you have chosen you get the call for interviews.

2 . How did you manage your finances there?

Ans: Our expenses were completely managed by the MITACS program. For Indian students, it is about 8000 Canadian dollars which were sufficient to manage all our flight, accommodation, food and other expenses.

3. On a lighter note, how was your stay in Canada?

Ans: My stay in Canada was quite different than what we have here because there were no hostels inside the university and thus we had to live outside the campus. You get a big house where you yourselves have to manage all the chores. Working conditions were very peaceful as we had to work for only 8 hours a day. So you get the time and even money to travel a lot. I visited a lot of new places during my internship as you get holidays on the weekends.

4. How is the approach of students present there different from us in terms of academics?

Ans : They approach towards academics is more inclined towards practicals rather than the theory.
The theory exams there are very simple and most of them are open-book tests. Further preparing for any exam there is much easier when compared to our college. Apart from that, they provide good research opportunities even to the undergraduate students and the courses there are very flexible.

5. Why do you think that foreign training is important?

Ans: If you want to get a taste of research or are genuinely interested in it than I believe FT is a great platform to achieve so. Further, it gives a boost to your CV as well and increases your chances to get a good university if you are planning to do Masters or PHD abroad.

6. How important is CG to go for foreign training?

Ans : CG does play a very crucial role. I would like to mention that apart from the Mitacs scholarship, I also got offers from DAAD, IIT KGP Foundation and Ohio. Since I had a pretty good CGPA, I always got the opportunity to show the panel my CV as Cgpa was the major shortlisting criteria in the initial round. Even if you have a normal Cg than also you can go for FT but the efforts which you have to put increase.

7. What would you suggest to your fellow Kgpians who aspire to go for foreign training?

Firstly you need to be very sure about doing FT at the beginning of the year and also find the area of your research. Then you need to make a list of all the scholarship programs and keep an eye on their respective deadlines. I would also advise to firstly take a project under a professor at KGP itself to get an idea of the research field which will enhance your performance during your internship.
Further, if you go for the process of mailing then you get to learn a lot of things as you read lots of research papers during that time.