S S Verma
Student internships at UG and PG level play a great role in motivating students towards deciding and finding their future career goals. In the months of May and November every year, there are hosts of student internships offered by different prestigious academic institutions/universities as well as government scientific organizations and private organizations in the country. Sometimes such internships are also
offered by foreign academic institutions/universities as well as scientific organizations. In the present era of active social media and its growing use with students, they are however aware of these opportunities but still they need encouragement and cooperation at the level of the departments/institutes where they are pursuing their education. Internships are supervised, structured learning experiences in a professional setting that allow you to gain valuable work experience in a chosen field of study. Such student internships are generally offered to students in their 3rd or 4th years of UG courses and pre-final year of their PG courses. The duration of these assignments is generally of two months and start in the last week of May or 1st week of June and called as summer internships.
Though, finding an internship is not that easy task but it also not that difficult or impossible. Students would be aware of such opportunities through social media like internet and should follow the following steps to secure a desired internship.
* Start your search early
* Search good institutes/ universities/ organizations/ career industries
* Search job boards
* Use your professional network
* Create an effective resume
* Keep sending applications
* Communicate with potential employers as well as your friends already working in such organizations
* Take help of your class teachers/mentors/counsellors in this regard
These types of internships are very important to UG & PG pre-final students as an internship is a professional learning experience that offers meaningful, practical work related to a student’s field of study or career interest. An internship gives a student the opportunity for career exploration and development, and to learn new skills. It also offers the employer the opportunity to bring new ideas and energy into the workplace, develop talent and potentially build a pipeline for future full-time employees. Proper motivation and cooperation can help students to achieve wonders. In this regard, I would like to share the experience of our M.Sc./23 batch (pre-final) students, in the class of thirteen students (six boys and seven girls), eight students (Six boys and 2 girls) could get an opportunity to secure their summer internship at prestigious institutes like: IIT Roorkee, IIT Mandi, IIT Ropar, IIT Jodhpur, IIT Bhillai, Indian institute of Geomagnetism (IIG), Indira Gandhi Atomic Energy Centre (Kalapkam) and Thapar Institute of Engg. and Technology (Patiala).
During the internship, host organizations generally provide sleeper class to and fro rail fare, hostel facility and some stipend also to the selected candidate. Sometimes a nominal registration fee is charged by the host organization. The selection in the internship is generally based on first come first basis, strong recommendation by the teacher/institute, having memorandum of understanding between the applicant’s institute and host institute. All top institutes like IITs, NITs, Central universities, CSIR labs, DRDO labs, state universities offer student internships giving a unique opportunity to students from other institutes/universities/colleges to explore their academic and research potentials in the advanced environments provided by these organizations.
Final words of encouragement are only that every student should keep on applying and respective department/institute should always help them in this regard and if they get such an opportunity, it will definitely play a great bench mark in the learning and taking the future course of their career.
(The author is from Department of Physics, S.L.I.E.T., Longowal)
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