You can read the entire T5E Vacation Guide 2014-15 here.
Whether you’re looking to become the youngest CEO in the world or working to win a Nobel, your first step would be to get a good internship. If you belong to the opposite camp and don’t know what you want to do with your life, an internship will help you narrow down your choices. Basically, internships are good. Do them.
Here are a few suggestions to get you started:
Research Internships
Research internships are work-intensive and might have a steep learning curve. At the same time, they present an opportunity for you to completely immerse yourself in a conducive, productive environment. Research is not something that can be done on a whim (as phdcomics shows), even if that’s all you planned to do ever since you first saw a magnet when you were two. Other than the usual (DAAD, Mitacs and the IISc internships), the two programmes students frequently participate in are VSRP (at TIFR, India) and Viterbi-India (at Viterbi school of engineering, USC, USA). Most universities have visiting research scholar internships or individual visiting positions with professors (these are tougher to get, but the rewards are proportionally greater). Some established programs are at University of Pennsylvania and Cornell.
Before applying, have a look at T5E’s tips for landing a good research internship.
Industrial Internships
Of course, there are the biggies that insti attracts through official channels (although there’s ample reason to think outside the box). But doing an intern in a startup means that you can always claim that you never sold your soul to the corporate world (though you’ll probably receive relatively little cash). Startups like Hyperverge, Lemalabs and Makeystreet by our own students are up and running. While the last is a social network–based company, Hyperverge is a technology-intensive computer visions service company. Both Hyperverge and Lemalabs are in IITMRP (the Research Park, by the way, is a one-stop hub for internship scouters) . Several other startups are funded by IITM Incubation Cell. You may contact them by shooting them a mail. Check out a few more successful startups covered by us in our ‘Made in Insti’ series.
