S N Bose Scholar Program by Kanan , IIT Madras

InternFeel: Hello Kanan, pleasure to see you here. Please tell us about yourself.

Kanan: Hello, I am Kanan, doing B.Tech in Chemical Engineering from IIT Madras. I enjoy dancing, watching movies, hanging out with friends. I am not too much of a sportsperson and ya I am a big foodie too.

IF: Which internship you got the chance to take? What is it all about? Stipend and duration?

Kanan: I took S. N. Bose Scholars Program. It is basically an internship program for Indian students to do 8 -10 week research internship in USA. We were the first batch for the program. Some programs like DAAD, Mitacs etc. have been there for a long time, but this one was new and luckily I got selected in it.

Regarding Stipend, they gave us 2000$ cash in hand, paid for our airfare both ways, accommodation and also medical insurance.

IF: How you came to know about the internship?

Kanan: We have International Relations department in our institute which provides us the information regarding the different internship program.

IF: How much competitive is the selection process? What things you feel are looked for in the applicant by the selectors?

Kanan: Some of my co-interns didn’t had very good cgpa, but they had some research background. With me, personally speaking I was not having much research work done, but I guess my academic side helped. I had third rank in my department and pretty good scores in 10th and 12th and along with that I had done few projects along with my courses, so I guess it helped.

IF: Approximately when you got the news for the selection? How was the celebration?

Kanan: Frankly I had not cleared in DAAD and Mitacs, so I was not expecting selection in this. I was having an industrial intern at back of it, so this selection news was a more than shocking, and I took time to really digest that .

IF: What all preparations you did before joining and after the results?

Kanan: We got to know about the projects pretty late. I got the project on genome modelling, about which I didn’t have much idea about. We were 9 students working on it. We were provide some papers to read on, but frankly saying, I couldn’t understand much.

IF: Any common mistakes which you feel students should avoid while searching and applying for internships?

Kanan: I think most important, thing is, even after getting the internship, is to try to get the project in which you are really interests to work. It is not a good thing to go for an internship with a project in which you are really not interested.

IF: So Kanan, could you please highlight us with what research project you carried out during the internship period? It’s application in near future and your work in it?

Kanan: We attempted to develop a high level language to create metabolic models of organisms and to then engineer them to attain desirable functionalities. Future work might reveal manifold new applications-one possible idea is the study of the metabolic models of genetically-diseased cells to predict curative techniques.

IF: As with almost everything, what were the cons of the internship? The elements which you felt, if wasn’t there could have made this internship super awesome?

Kanan: I was not really interested in the project which was allotted, even now I am not much satisfied with it. Other than this work environment, colleagues were all nice. They were there to help always.

IF: What was the guidance provided by your guide? What all support you received from your host administration.

Kanan: Our guide was very supportive. Despite knowing that we were not that much fond of the project, and were not progressing comfortably, he was very much supportive and used to provide as much help as possible.

IF: To which all people you would, like to thank in context of this internship?

Kanan: I would thank the professors under whom I worked, and also the professors of my college for giving me a good recommendation letters.

IF: What advice you would like to give to your juniors, which can help them in getting internships in their future college life?

Kanan: For the freshers and juniors I will say that, try to explore the research areas your professors are working on. If you are really enthusiastic, start doing something related to your research field. So that by the time you are applying in different internships you have a good profile.

IF: What are your future plans after this internship and how much impact this internship will have on it?

Kanan: I mostly wanna do MS from US. But I am not much sure regarding that.

IF: Any views about this initiative of InternFeel, and how beneficial it would be?

Kanan: If you are really able to reach out maximum number of students, it will be nice. We were not having any such thing in our time. I used to ask 2- 3 seniors regarding their experiences. Apart from them I didn’t have any other good resource. So ya this will be really helpful. Students would be able to learn from our mistakes and help others too.

IF: So Kanan, we are at the end of the interview. From the entire team of InternFeel, we thank you for sharing your experiences with us, for everyone and we wish you best of luck for all your future endeavors.

Kanan: Thanks a lot. Thank you very much