NSITonline

“Aman Bindal (from the batch of ’10) while reminiscing his years in college, talks about his internship experiences and placements.”

Aman did his internship from Ecole Centrale Paris University, France and Egonocast Company (based in France), from which he even received a pre-placement offer. He got job offers from Aricent and American express. He even got accepted into Georgia Tech, University of Michigan and Paris for MS.

During his college years he was involved in many research projects ranging from artificial intelligence, machine learning, computer vision, image processing to data mining, language translator etc. Some of them were Modelling Trust in Human Conversation, Language Translator, Virtual Mouse and Keyboard and Iris Recognition. He has published few Research Papers in IEEE and Springer conferences and journals on topics related to Wikipedia Mining, Iris Recognition (Conf and Journal) etc. He even has got an algorithm on Real Time Video Matching patented. He worked actively for IEEE NSIT student branch as a Web Manager, Media Manager, Workshop Manager and SIG Manager. Being a member of CSI and IEEE he got various opportunities to be a part of national meets.

Talking about his internship experiences he says:

“There are 3 methods to get a foreign intern.

1. Check out university websites for summer internship openings and apply there.
2. Go to university websites and check out professors email id in whose work you are interested in and send them your resume with a brief introductory cover letter.
3. Contact the seniors in foreign universities as they might know of such existing universities.”

He got few intern offers in Australia, Portugal, France and UK through second procedure.

Some important points to keep in mind while applying for an intern are:

1. Apply only to 1-2 people in a department, as most decisions are taken after a combined meeting of the department professors and HOD.
2. Show your interest in a research work of a professor and mention few papers which you like or interested in.
3. Try to get some experience before hand in the particular field in which you want to get intern.
4. Working in research specific or a bit different field yield more fruitful results. Some examples are:

• Computers: Computer Vision, Device programming, Grid Computing, Image Processing
• Electronics: Semiconductors, VLSI Designing, FPGAs etc

       5.  Contact your seniors to get email ids in related field, as many of them already have list of email ids made in             their time.

       6.  Apply in US from November till late January and in Europe from January till Late March.

 Aman says that the experience one gets from a foreign internship is worth putting in an effort for 3 months. The working environment, culture and way of thinking are totally different and a systematic approach of research is adopted. Managing everything from your travel to living gives you a great experience in adapting to a new environment Apart from work you have plenty of time to roam around. Many of his friends who were in Europe visit at least 2-3 nations during the intern. So consider it as an opportunity to learn new things and a free trip abroad.

Some overall tips which Aman shares with all of us are 

• Maintain a good percentage- above 75%. His intern offer from MIT got cancelled due to his low percentage.
• Open your avenues, don’t just aim for campus placements. There are whole lot of opportunities to bank upon. Don’t just follow others, create your own path.
• Don’t just stick to course curriculum. Indulge in projects, organizing events, participating in competitions and get as much exposure as you can.

He shares his placement experiences, 

“The companies like Amex, Deloitte etc. Check your quantitative, analytical and puzzle solving skill more than your programming skills. They also put stress on HR questions like how long are you going to stay with them, what are your future goals, considering MS or MBA in near future, etc. Try not to show any indication of such things in the interview.

Regarding preparation for these companies, go through puzzle books like George J Summers and common questions from net. Most of the questions are often repeated or taken directly from these sources. Also work on CAT quant and DI questions as in many screening processes you can find these types of questions. As most of the batch is preparing for MBA, you wouldn’t want to get caught off guard.” 

Aman ends with a final note, “Enjoy college life to the fullest as life might just become a bit too busy and demanding with no time to spare.”