Hi, I’m Sthiti, in my third year of college and two years away from graduation. My degree: struggling through the wires of Electrical engineering and its overwhelming course load (P.S: It isn’t as bad as it sounds.) I have been a part of the Mars Rover Team since the last two years, I was also part of the EE-ACE. An avid reader and explorer at heart, this is how I’d describe my journey.
PRE-INTERNSHIP
Fresh out of the vehement last-minute struggles of resume-making and from the minute scrutiny of my resume by my seniors, I was excited about the opportunities that were going to come my way. While the first year was spent in transitioning from JEE and the second year brought out the full force of academics; Internships were like the gold mine of real-life experience I was waiting for.
Now, to set up the stage, I had always wanted to explore both the corporate and the research side of Electrical engineering before deciding on my future career. So, when the internship season started, I was looking for good research opportunities that I could partake in and expose myself to professional research environments. Courtesy of the Placement cell, when TUB came with their variety of IAFs, I was drawn in by the various projects they were offering along with the fact that I would get to travel abroad.
Even when I recall scrolling through the Internship blog, (I liked core because of the courses we had and my work in MRT) I applied for projects involving technologies that appealed to me. To be truthful, I almost figured that I would not be selected but had my hopes up, the idea of going to Europe was too lucrative.(P.S: I always wanted to visit a foreign country as a little girl, so you can excuse the fangirliness). So, all I did was sign the IAF, closed my laptop and hoped. For what seemed like a miracle then.
Come the interview, I was a nervous wreck. My thoughts were plagued with all kinds of inevitables as the interview link was shared. (Yups, held online!)
I did not have to, the Professor was very friendly (and a New Yorker living in Germany, I was almost afraid, I might not keep up with his English) and I managed to answer most questions to my satisfaction. There were few technical questions, it was majorly focused on my interests and the work I had done and planned to do.
But my part was done.
And, for all the fingers that had been crossed for me, fortune was in my favour.
INTERNSHIP
More than the internship, I was starry-eyed about the Europe tour that I would do. The prospect of being in a different continent was as daunting as it was thrilling. At the same time, it was my first stint being part of official research. Germany was as beautiful and as sparse; a novel mix of countryside and technology interspersed in harmony. With evenings as late as 11 pm, the sun laid a beautiful purple glow across the landscape as our flight touched down around 10 pm German time. The culture shock and the little details that separated the countries hit us all at once. (The sprite bottles are all white and beer is cheaper than water there!)
The first day at work, we were a whole thirty minutes late navigating the onslaught of organised public transportation in meandering new streets. From the crowded roads of Mumbai, the silence of European towns was both unnerving and peaceful.
Enough poetry about the scenery, let’s talk about work!
The first thing that our Professor mentioned was the IP policy and the overview of work we could do in the course of little over eight weeks. I was excited by the prospect of the three mini projects that I could choose from and my own desktop setup (like my own tiny workplace!).
Our project was based on ‘Space Debris Removal using Nano-Satellites controlled by Low-Power Autonomous Agents’; where the nanosatellites were supposed to communicate among themselves to push debris without interference from the base station. My particular part in this project was to use ASL and embedded BDI framework to make autonomous agents out of nanosatellites. With the deadline for paper submission 3 weeks after my arrival, it was a frantic effort. (One time, I stayed back till 2AM to work on the microcontrollers, leaving directly for the train station for my trip to Amsterdam!). Fun times.
But in the end, we submitted the paper and it got accepted eventually, so it was a successful venture. The remaining projects I was involved in were slower, involving setting up debugger on microcontrollers and getting things to run.
Takeaways from my internship experience:
I learned to work with minimal resources, and try out absolute random possibilities to explore all avenues, something usually worked.
Errors can be anywhere and everywhere, it is important to read through and understand the error properly and google the right things. (Never underestimate Google!)
My supervisor and Professor were very helpful and anytime progress stalled, they were ready to help and their pointers were usually game-changers. So, one piece of advice: Never shy away from help!
The coolest part! I worked with seven different microcontrollers from three different companies and it was nothing short of a delight. All-in-all, the work is engaging and the insights you gain are invaluable in terms of research experience.
Now, moving onto the fun part!
TRAVEL
In a short period of two months, I managed to explore over eight different countries taking full advantage of the schengen visa and Eurail pass. Almost every other weekend we were out on some adventure to a new country, a new place.
The highlight of the trip? I managed to snag a photo of the Eiffel tower with olympic rings on it. And finally visited my dream city of Paris. Now, if I were to write a travel blog I might fill up an entire book on the mishaps and the eccentricities of it. So, I’d rather keep them to myself so you can explore on your own.
To quote a story, the day we landed in Germany (perks of it being a Friday) we immediately set out for Italy on a five-day trip to Venice and Rome. But funnily enough, our gross miscalculation of travel time when taking public transport, resulted in us travelling only with our backpacks and no clothes on hand.
So, to state, for all our preparations, I kept being pleasantly surprised by both my less-than-ideally-planned travels and my venture into research in embedded systems.
To conclude, a few words from my side: Be confident in yourself. Express your enthusiasm to learn and don’t fret over setbacks. Research internships look more towards your experience and willingness to work. Best of luck to all!
