Introduction
Hey everyone! I am Bhumika Bhangale, a fourth-year student in the Department of Metallurgical Engineering and Materials Science with a minor in Electrical Engineering. I will be sharing my journey of the internship season and how I ended up getting a research intern in Taiwan.
How did you develop an interest in the area of your internship?
From the very start of my B.Tech journey after attending few core courses I was sure of going into materials science as a research field. Also, I took up electrical engineering as I wanted to learn all about semiconductors and electronic circuits. But in this intern I ended up working on the topic which was much more related to chemistry which was very new to me and it ended up building my interest in batteries and other energy materials.
The intern season and apping
From the beginning of the intern season, I wanted to find a research intern which is based on materials science (sadly there is no such company that comes to recruit in this field), I tried apping to companies like Vedanta and Log9 Materials but was unable to get any positive responses. After some setbacks, I switched to applying for university internship programs listed in the Univ Intern PDF shared by Enpower, but again, without success. After this sad end to this episode, I finally started university apping (sending mails directly to the professors of targeted universities). While apping you always want to make sure that the professor is ready to fund you (unless you got money to spend), most of the replies asked me for my source of funding and I didn’t have one. So I got to find the prof that pays me at least for my stay and other necessities. Finally, I ended up finding a program called Taiwan Experience Education Program and started applying for the same (this was literally in the month of April, peak stressed!).
Getting an internship
To apply for the TEEP program, I needed to find a professor willing to nominate me. After sending several emails, I received positive responses from 3-4 professors and scheduled meetings to discuss potential projects. Since I wanted to try something new, I chose a topic in electrochemistry, which was completely outside my previous experience.
Work
Talking about the work, the working hours were quite flexible, and my work involved the synthesis and characterization of a novel catalyst material for increasing the efficiency of oxygen evolution reaction. One of the highlights was visiting Taiwan’s Synchrotron facility, TSMC Museum, and Tokyo Electronics Limited as part of field visits organized by my professor. My labmates were incredibly supportive, and although communication was a challenge at first, it improved over time. Beyond work, I got immersed in Taiwan’s culture, enjoying the food, exploring beautiful beaches and cities with people from varied cultural backgrounds, and experiencing the country’s rich traditions.
Final Advice
If you’re considering university internships, I recommend starting apping early—around November. My final piece of advice: believe in yourself. The internship process can be stressful sometimes, but finding a research position requires patience and persistence, qualities that are essential for any researcher
