How to get an internship at IIT
Do you remember those endless nights when you tried to gulp down every single word written in HC Verma and solve every numerical of Irodov? With Kota Factory releasing today to remind you all the more of those hellish years (only if you couldn’t get into IIT) of your life when you practically lived inside a book, there’s no better time to publish this article. Take a deep breath and tell yourself that it’s okay you couldn’t get into an IIT through JEE for we’ll tell you how you can experience the adrenaline rush of interning at IIT.
What are the available internships at IIT and who can apply?
Undergraduate and postgraduate students pursuing a degree in engineering, physics, math, humanities, social sciences, etc. can apply to internships in IIT in various research, management, and engineering fields such as virtual reality, product management, mobile app development, electromagnetics, etc. IIT internships usually last 6-8 weeks during the months of May to July, and interns are provided with a stipend of 5-15K. Here’s a compilation of types of internships at various IITs and their eligibility criteria.
IIT Ropar – Undergraduate and postgraduate students pursuing civil, mechanical, electronics, electrical, chemical, biomedical, material and energy, or computer science engineering and non-technical courses such as humanities, social science, math, physics, or chemistry can apply to 5-to-8-week-long internships at IIT Ropar in March.
IIT Roorkee – IIT Roorkee recently started SPARK, a summer internship program wherein students who are in their second and/or pre-final year can apply to internships at IIT Roorkee. The online registration opens in Mid-January, and interested students can apply by filling in their academic details and attaching a transcript and resume along with a research statement which talks about their motivation for doing research, research background, and areas of interest. These internships last 6-8 weeks and offer a stipend of 2.5K per week.
IIT Gandhinagar – IIT Gandhinagar has a dedicated summer internship program known as Summer Research Internship Program (SRIP) which aims at bringing students from across the country and faculty from IITs work together on an on-going research project. Undergraduate students in 1st, 2nd, or 3rd year and 1st-year postgraduate students are eligible to apply to 8-week internships at IIT Gandhinagar under SRIP.
IIT Guwahati – Students in their 3rd year of engineering can apply to an internship at IIT Guwahati in February. Students can visit the websites of the departments they wish to intern in and fill in an online application form to apply.
IIT Bombay – They offer summer internships to students who are currently in their 6th semester or have performed exceptionally well in 2nd. 2nd-year students with exceptional academic performance may also be considered for internships in IIT Bombay. Students are shortlisted on the basis of their academic performance and technical skills. Selected candidates take a mandatory online programming test in C. Visit here for more details about internships at IIT Bombay.
IIT Bombay also hosts IITB Research Internship Awards where students in the final year of their master’s degree and in 3rd or 4th year of their bachelor’s degree can apply to research internships and are offered a stipend of 10K/month. The applications for these internships open in August and selected students intern for 4-6 months from December to June with the faculty at IITB.
IIT Delhi – IIT Delhi offers two internship programs – Global Internship Program in Engineering, Design, and Innovation (GIPEDI) and Summer Research Fellowship (SRF). The former is an internship in electrical sciences such as electrical, electronics, computer science, information technology, telecom, instrumentation engineering, etc. This program runs throughout the year in four batches – January to May, May to July, July to December, and December to January. In SRF, undergraduate students who have completed at least 2 years of study assist the faculty at IIT Delhi in research projects. 20 students are selected for this 8-12 week internship and are offered a fellowship of INR 500/week. For more details about SRF, you can write to drugs@admin.iitd.ac.in.
IIT Hyderabad – Different departments at IIT Hyderabad such as computer science and electrical engineering offer 8-week-long internships lasting from May to July to 3rd-year students pursuing B.E./B.Tech in computer science, electronics, electrical, etc. 2nd-year students with exceptional academic performance can apply to these internships. The online applications for IIT Hyderabad internships open in mid-Feb; one can check the individual department websites to look for available internships.
How to apply for an IIT internship?
1. Apply online – You can apply to internships at IIT by visiting the official careers website of the IIT or websites of the particular departments in an IIT where you want to intern. One can also apply through the aforementioned internship programs.
2. Email the professors – You can email IIT professors who have similar research interests as yours and request them to host you as an intern. Mention your academic background and research interests and explain why you wish to work on the project and how your skill set can contribute to it. (Note: The email ids of the professors can be found on the official website of the respective IIT)
3. National academies of science – You can apply for a 2-month summer research fellowship at IIT through Indian Academy of Science (IAS), Indian National Science Academy, and National Academy of Sciences, India. The application forms are made available in November; you can submit it along with your cover letter.
4. Internshala – Different IITs post their intern requirements on Internshala from time to time. You may apply to these internships by answering the ‘Why should you be hired?’ question.
What after applying to an IIT internship?
The IIT recruitment process begins with an initial screening on the basis of cover letters and statements of purpose. For research internships, students are evaluated on the basis of their academic background and performance, research interests, and alignment with the proposed projects. The selected students are called for a telephonic/Skype/face-to-face interview with the concerned professor. Most IIT interview questions revolve around a student’s research interest and skill set. Some sample IIT interview questions are –
1. Why do you want to work in the applied field?
2. How would this internship help you achieve your career goals?
3. How can you contribute to this project?
4. Tell me about the projects you’ve worked on so far.
Other than these, the professors also evaluate candidates on their technical knowledge about the project and field they’ve applied for. For instance, if you’ve applied in the field of artificial intelligence, the questions will revolve around C/C++, Matlab, numerical methods, interpolation and extrapolation, neural networks, probability, etc.
Some sample technical questions that are asked during IIT interviews for domains like mobile and web development are –
1. Write algorithms for sorting and binary tree implementation.
2. What is recursion?
3. What is a palindrome? Write a program for palindrome using recursion.
4. Find the number of sub-arrays in the permutation of first N natural numbers such that their median is M.
5. How would you implement a stack using a queue?
6. How would you convert a doubly linked list to a binary tree?
What to expect once your internship in IIT starts?
Mood Indigo! IIT internships, being a typical case of having fun while learning, involve long hours of work followed by longer hours of LAN gaming, scrabble, and whatnot! If you apply for a research internship, a research scholar would be appointed as a guide, and you’ll spend the first few days studying the research work in order to understand the intricacies of the project. At the end of the internship, interns have to present their project work in the form of a poster or presentation.
IIT interns are offered accommodation in the college hostel and get unlimited access to seminars, workshops, and libraries along with presentations of Ph.D. scholars’ research. Could it BE any better!
For a clearer understanding of what to expect from your internship at IIT, you can read Ankita’s internship experience at IIT.
A couple of pro-tips from ex-interns at IIT –
1. A great CGPA, usually more than 8.5, boosts your chances of getting through the initial screening.
2. Focus on your research interests, why you want to intern at IIT, and how you’ll contribute to the project based on your previous experiences in your statement of purpose.
3. Spend time skilling yourself and gaining more knowledge about your area of interest before applying for an IIT internship.
4. You can use register on Codzilla to practice coding problems if you’re applying for a development role.
5. If you’re selected for a research internship, read up about your field of research before the internship begins because as they say, ‘Getting in isn’t the challenge, surviving is!’
You can find out more about an internship at IIT by diving into Sudhakar’s beautiful journey at IIT Bombay.
If you’re interested in interning for companies like IIT, Xiaomi, Hyatt, Calvin Klein, and countless others register for Internshala’s Grand Summer Internship Fair here!
If you’re ready to pack your bags and take that much dreamt-of trip to IIT, apply to a summer internship at IIT now!
Pic credits – newsd.in