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Jaskaran SIngh Sodhi | Mechanical Engineering

Tecnologico de Monterrey, Mexico

Research Area: Energy Harvesting from Automotive Systems

What was the University and topic of research that was taken up by you during the FT?

The University was Tecnologico de Monterrey which is in Monterrey, Mexico. The topic of my research was pretty open ended for the first two weeks. It was a six-week internship and they let us decide the topic of our research. It was broadly supposed to be related to Energy Harvesting from Automotive Systems. Specifically, my area of research was Energy Harvesting from Exhaust Systems and Catalytic Converters.

Why is an FT important? How would one compare research in Indian universities and foreign universities?

One of the reasons why I did an FT was because I wanted to see what research culture is like in places other than KGP. I had done a couple of projects in KGP and just wanted a taste of how things go about internationally. Apart from that I also got to meet people of other cultures. Automotive technology is somewhat different depending on the regions of the world. The technology developed in India might be more on the side of durability and cost effectiveness. However, in countries like the US, they want cars to go more on the electric side. So, in the automotive sector also, every place has a different research culture. I got to experience what the automotive culture is like in the western hemisphere.

FT vs corporate internship, what are all the things we are missing out on and what are we gaining more?

I did a corporate internship as well as an FT. When I was doing my corporate internship, I really enjoyed it, mainly because things move at a much faster rate, and the responses, and deadlines are very dynamic in the case of the corporate culture. And also, things are focused a lot on feasibility. They need solutions to be extremely practical, not just from a theoretical point of view but from a manufacturing and development point of view too. In research, I would say the best part, at least of this internship, was that I was not bound to work on whichever project the company was working on. I had the freedom of developing my own problem statement. So this problem statement of exhaust systems and the catalytic converter was one that I came up with on my own. We were a team of three undergraduates who worked on this. The Professors and PostDoc scholars helped us out every week. This made it a really good environment since I got the time, resources, and flexibility to work on whatever I want to. The only con was the pace since in a corporation the work is much more fast paced because of the deadlines, and the deployment of products in real life.

Should BTech students aspiring for higher studies from abroad opt for an FT?

Definitely, that is very similar to my case because that is what I aspire to do. I believe one should have experiences of FTs and Corporate Internships both even if you are a four year student, you should probably manage your time that way. Because you should give both of them a fair shot before making your decision in the fourth year. In your final years, if you don’t give a shot to corporate internships and end up disliking research, then that’s really your own fault cause you didn’t give it a try. So I would say, try to explore as much as possible, do a corporate internship, research internship, do some NGO work, do all kinds of things so that you actually get an experience out of it. For a four-year student, I agree that it is a little difficult because the only summer you get is your second year summer excluding your first three semesters where you develop your skillset. After that, you have your CDC where you have to decide where you want to go. In the second year, you just have that one summer to explore, so what I did was that, since this was a two month internship and it was a four month summer, I did a corporate internship as well. That helped me decide a lot. So, you should go for an FT for sure, and also a corporate internship if time permits.

What exactly is the application process for the FT? Are there any important documents one must keep?

The application process started with IR Cell putting up the project description, duration, and university name on their Foreign Training Portal. I was regularly checking those and I submitted my application. My application was my CV and a two-fifty word SOP. The SOP was basically my introduction, Cover Letter, etc. That was which I had to fill in the IR Cell text editor itself. The only document that I had to upload was my Resume. Based on that I got an email that I was selected. After I was selected, I got an email for a NOC, which I had to fill to accept that I will be taking part in the project. From my side, nothing other than the Resume was required.

How did the process get affected due to the online nature of the applications?

I might not be the right person to answer this as I did not see how the offline process went. But I can say that even though it was online I did not face any hurdles at all. In fact, I felt it was a lot easier than applying for projects otherwise as all I had to do was submit my resume. As it was a portal I was able to submit my resume to five or six places, and it was that easy.

Did you have to mail the professor personally for the project? For how much time did you wait for a reply?

No, I applied through the portal. I used to regularly keep a check on when the results were coming out. I don’t know why, but it just happened that my university results came out very late, in fact, after the summer vacations had begun. (Read: Never lose hope) I applied by the end of February, and I got my result in April.

When should one start applying for an FT? How long did the procedure last till you got the desired FT?

I would not recommend anyone to do internships or an FT before their second year summer. At the risk of being blunt, I would say, I think you don’t have the skill set till that point. But what you can do during the second year, is apply for projects, Inter IIT Tech Meet, Hall Activities, Open IITs. There is a lot to do. An FT is just taking things to the next level and I would say do that in your summer vacations. I started applying for FTs in my third semester, but I did not get an FT. I luckily did get one interview but they realized later that I was a second year. I have gotten replies to emails saying that we don’t give FTs to second years (I planned on applying for FTs in the second week of October. I tried a lot but failed miserably, primarily because of not having consulted seniors properly) But then, the Inter IIT Tech Meet came along and I got busy in that. I finally applied for IR Cell FTP in February and I got the results in April.

What is the role of CGPA in the selection process?

I don’t know on what basis I was selected, maybe because I had some projects a little close to the domain and I had also done a course in the same domain and the same topic I worked on. But I have seen some other projects listed on the website that had CGPA cutoffs, don’t remember 9 being there but I do remember 8.5 being there. In general, applying for Foreign Training CGPA does play a huge role. The reason being that it is the only objective metric that a professor can use to judge you. If you can compensate for a low CGPA with brilliant projects then your CGPA doesn’t really matter.

How did the pandemic affect your application for the project? Did the pandemic have any positive impact on the project?

Due to the pandemic, the biggest positive thing was that since everything became online and remote, I could now do multiple things together. So I decided to take this opportunity and explore as much as I could. In my second year of summer vacation, I did 2 projects, 1 internship, and research group work as well, all of which were possible only because of the pandemic.

Where should a student, who is unaware about the entire application process, look up for information about professors and their research work for opportunities?

In the IR Cell case, I would say that the description was very conveniently there. It was in fact divided into sections, description, location, duration, and relevant skillset. When I apply externally what I tend to do is for example if I am looking for research projects in Computer Vision then I would search “ [University Name] Computer Vision” and I would get a list of research groups and professors working on Computer Vision, and then I open their profile. I list down the professors in a Google sheet and then I take up each professor case by case. I take one professor at a time and open their Google Scholar and look at their publications in that year. Out of those publications if any of them match my area of interest, then I keep that professor's profile otherwise I don’t. If the area of research matches my profile, then I read that paper then I write an email saying how I liked the paper and how I would like to work on it. So it's basically on how much the professor's work interests me.

How should a first year student prepare beforehand for his FT application in their subsequent year?

You actually shouldn’t prepare in your first year. I know it sounds like you are missing out on the competition, but you’re really not. If you do start preparing in your first year you are definitely going to miss out on a lot of stuff that you will not have the chance to get again. However, one thing that a first year student can definitely do, who plans to get an FT, is to get a good CGPA. Your second year is where you put in the hours.

Does belonging to IITKGP provide any added benefits for getting your FT?

It adds a lot to your credibility. Professors abroad do know about IIT and they respect it a lot. Apart from that, being from IIT KGP is also advantageous because the alumni network is so strong, wherever you apply you will probably find someone from IIT KGP.