Getting a Research Internship as an undergrad!

Working as a research intern in a lab is one of the finest ways to head start your career in research. However, at the same time, finding a research internship as an undergrad (with little or often no experience) can be a really daunting process. So I decided to summarize my thoughts and ideas to help students like me in their quest!

First things first, no one is going to hire you without any kind of experience. And in this era of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC's), GitHub, and LinkedIn, you have no right to say that you do not have a guide or a structured way to start learning anything. Almost everything from 'Artificial Intelligence' to 'Acting' you have experts designing online courses that can help you in some way or the other! So doing a MOOC related to your research interest whether it be Development and Organization of Public Policy or Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) is certainly a great way to start your journey towards something new and exciting.

Once through with the course, the elements of the course itself will help you in further extrapolating and exploring ideas. Sometime relevant people and research papers that you should be targetting would also be just a hand away! Start fiddling with GitHub projects, make something really simple from scratch. You have realized your will, you just have to develop the touch for the same.

This process can take up anything from 6 to 12 months of your life, depending on your capacity, research interests and certainly the field. So almost after a year of fiddling around, you are ready to approach experts and guides in this field to further help you in walking through your desired field.

Now, this is the time you start approaching people via emails, LinkedIn, Facebook and so on asking for their help and prospective internship opportunity. Be prepared for rejections! Most of the labs in the world don't like taking/hiring interns as they need too much help and are there for a short period of time (generally three months or so). So by the time interns start contributing, essentially it's time for them to leave. However, interns bring a lot of energy and there are professors and people who really enjoy working with interns at the same time! In this process, we are supposed to find such folks, simple. This process can be really creative and funny sometimes. For instance, a friend of mine updated his profile picture in order to reveal that he has been to Singapore and the professor replied:

“Have you been here? I can’t really pay you a lot, so if you have someone with whom you can stay we can go ahead :)”

So you really don't know what is going to work and what won't. The approach to such a problem in life is pragmatism. When one approach fails, believe that some others might work! And keep trying!

Now based on your research for almost a year decide upon tentative fields and research areas that you wish to apply for. Don’t randomly shoot any professor an email, saying you are interested in his/her work! They understand people who are genuinely interested and hoaxed mails. And there is a very high chance that they have gone through this years ago :P

Once decided, make a resume highlighting your interests and projects that you have worked on. You don’t have to mention every single work ever done by you in your resume. Try highlighting stuff that you want them to know about, writing all the major projects etc. which had a significant contribution from your side. A resume is a door through which they get the first impression of your personality and interests. Put a sufficient amount of energy into drafting it.

Now, this is something that was typical to me. I had made a short bio, it was like a two-page document in which I tried to justify my motivation. Essentially, how all my projects have taught me and helped me in heading towards what I am interested in exploring! This worked pretty well, as at the end I would always add a section “Why” so and so university! In this section I would define specifically why am I applying to that particular professor or fellowship or university and throw a bit of light on what can be expected out of me in three months of research internship. This impressed a lot of professors :)

Now for mailing, every week I would decide upon 10–15 people whom I would follow extensively. I would read their research papers and blogs, read stuff that their labs are pursuing, understand how could I contribute and draft emails accordingly for just these 15 people in the week. Then one fine day, generally Monday or Tuesday I would shoot all of them together.

Next is the body of the email that you are sending. Try writing a precise mail stating clearly:

• who you are
• what are you applying for
• in short why
• what can be expected
• how exactly do you feel you can contribute!
• Any specific edge that you have, external funding, fellowship, etc. (For Germany and France explicitly mention DAAD and Charpak!)

I used to elaborate upon details in the additional document that I mentioned above, it’s your choice, try writing it in a way you would be keen to read an e-mail :) Mail Track was used by me to understand if the professor is interested or not! After 100's of rejections hopefully, you will find a couple of professors who would be interested in taking you as an intern.

However, you have to understand this is a blind shot both for the professor as well as the student. It's very likely that the professor would arrange a call or a skype chat to further understand and gauge your interests and knowledge. Please take this as an opportunity to understand your fitment in the lab you are trying to work for. It's not an exam or company that you are trying to qualify for. Most likely you would become a part of an esoteric group with people having a very streamlined set of interests. You have to judge whether you would enjoy working with/for them and is this what you are looking for! You have spent a substantial amount of energy and resources in finding 'a' internship but your quest is towards 'the' internship that you are looking for! It's okay to be flexible, but look at the whole situation very comprehensively before saying a 'yes!'

Funding scenarios may differ and vary to a very great extent. My general advise in terms of funding is always try getting some amount of funding from the professor, as that ensures some kind of stake from his/her end and there is a very high chance that you would become a part of a structured project which has been funded reasonably.

That is pretty much it from my side! Please feel free to approach me if in case you have any doubts or concerns :)

Cheers!

Harsh Agarwal