$ whoami

This command on my terminal would say “kali” but I will try to do better :). So hey folks, I am Ankeet Saha, currently (October 2024) a third-year undergrad student in the Computer Science and Engineering Department. During my Sophomore year, I served my tenure as a Core Team Member in the Cyber Security Community. I also completed a research internship at CISPA Helmholtz Institute of Information Security in Saarbrücken, Germany in the Summer of 2024, and (obviously) this blog is going to elaborate on the same.

Why CISPA?

Well, if it wasn’t clear already, Cyber Security is something I really enjoy. And CISPA was literally a research center dedicated to various topics in the same. Honestly, I wasn’t planning to pursue a research internship in my Sophomore year before I came to know about CISPA. But seeing that such a research center exclusively dedicated to cybersecurity actually exists, I had to give it a shot.

The Selection

Now comes the part that you are actually going to read :). And no, this was not through PT cell, I got lucky and applied externally for this internship. CISPA has a voluntary summer internship program on their website and you must have completed at least 4 semesters when your internship starts, to be eligible. You can keep an eye on here if you are interested in the same. Last time, you had to apply under exactly one of the many topics (and respective supervisors) mentioned in their program. To apply, you will need to submit a CV and a motivation letter along with at least one Letter of Recommendation from any professor. Based on the topic under which you applied, your next steps for the selection would be decided. Some of my co-interns were interviewed after the application while some (including me) were selected just based on resume (YES!!). Although they took a long time to send a response. I applied at the end of October and got the offer letter somewhere around the start of January. I feel the selection was pretty lenient. Being from a premier institute makes things easier I guess. Do at least give this a try if you are looking for a subsidized trip to Europe this Summer :).

Preparation

Honestly, I did not prepare anything for this specifically. Just a CV and a decent motivation letter (if that counts). And as I mentioned, I wasn’t even interviewed so I didn’t even need to prepare for anything later on. Well yeah, I already had a good profile when it came to Cyber Security. Maybe that helped, idk.

Experience

I have mixed reviews regarding the entire experience. It seemed that the HR department of CISPA was really confused regarding how to arrange an appointment to get their interns a VISA. It got really delayed and caused a lot of stress and confusion too. But thankfully, things were sorted at last. I had to arrange for an appointment myself too because CISPA couldn’t assist me in finding a decent one in time either lol. But then yeah, finally there I was on the 14th of May, 2024 living the European dream! I was really excited about the kind of work we would be doing. But — that didn’t turn out to be that good of an experience :(. My research topic was regarding Fuzzing. What is this? To explain it in a single line, it is the automated testing of software applications to uncover potential bugs in it. Things started well for around the first 2 weeks. I learned about some really interesting fuzzing techniques. After this, our professor would assign us a project to work on. I will skip on the exact details of the project because I am lazy. This also went okay-ish for the next 2-3 weeks. But after a point, I (and my co-intern) sort of gave up on this. One reason was that our supervisor didn’t show up much and ask for our progress and there was nobody to keep us accountable. The other reason was that the project was an over-ambitious one for kids like us to accomplish. But yeah, I still don’t regret my decision to take up an internship at CISPA coz Europe is definitely a great place to explore 🙂 . One thing I would tell you guys which I hope someone told me earlier. If you get selected and get an offer letter, start looking for accommodation real soon. It gets hectic if you do it at the last moment and you would usually miss the relatively affordable ones which are also closer to the univ. All in all, I would say CISPA was indeed a great experience for me. Living all alone in a completely foreign country made me really grow as a person.

Finally, would I recommend CISPA to my juniors? Definitely! The work experience might not have been that great but the overall experience of everything combined really compensated for it manifold. Also, your work experience might be completely different from mine depending on your topic and supervisor.

All the best to everyone for your internship season. I hope you got some helpful insights (pun not intended) through this blog. Me Ankeet, signing off for the day.