My Mitacs Globalink Internship 2021 experience
By: Vatsal Verma
Tags: Intern, Intern Abroad, Internships, Internship Experience, Mitacs

Introduction-

Hey everyone, I’m Vatsal Verma an undergraduate pre-final year pursuing B.Tech (Hons.)- Computer science and engineering at SRM Institute of Science and Technology. And recently I got 3 Internship offers (EPITA Paris, Mitacs Canada, OIST Japan) fully funded.

My Mitacs Globalink Internship 2021 experience

Description: This is a competitive internship for international undergraduates from Australia, Brazil, China, France, India… basically a lot of countries. If selected, you will (and must) work for a period of 12 weeks in one of the Universities in Canada.

MITACS internships are available in over 45 Canadian Universities and hence you have a good pool to choose from. This 45 includes many of the top-ranked Universities such as the University of British Columbia, McGill University, University of Toronto, etc. (Of course, please don’t limit yourself to top Universities) The CGPA cutoff is a bit lax here with a minimum of 8/10 for Indians.

Applying for the Mitacs internship was no different. It was after the Cycle-Test exams, around the third week of September 2020, when I realized that I needed to hush up my application for the Mitacs program, sealing it up just a few hours before the deadline (Ahh, I was so freaked out). Then, about a month later or more(13 Nov 2020), they mailed back that my application was being forwarded to the professors whom I had chosen to work with. And the same day, I got a mail from a professor(University of Toronto) whom I had chosen to work with setting up an interview over Zoom meet(My first ever Mid-Night Interview 😜). I was asked to brief them about my previous projects and in turn, they gave me an idea on the project that I could be potentially working on and some talks related to the covid-19 situation in Canada and obviously India, then some maths jokes and computer science basic talks, so if I would sum up, it was more of a formal interview. And next same day I received a mail from another Professor for a skype interview at ETS Montreal.

Again, after a month’s wait, I woke up to the subject in my mailbox: “Mitacs Globalink Research Internships — Official Project Offer to Students / Programme de stages recherche Globalink — Offre de projet officielle aux étudiants”. That’s when, it was official, and that’s when you are dropped from the roller coaster after months of potential build-up. I was selected for my internship at Computer Communication Laboratory, École de Technologie supérieure — Montréal(ETS Montreal) to work with Prof. Ghizlane El Boussaidi on An empirical study of mobile development frameworks and their impact on apps’ quality.

This is a period of uncertainty because of Covid-19, I will be going to Montreal in May’21 for this internship. HOPE FOR THE BEST!

Application Procrdure

So, MITACS I would say is a reasonably long application with the only assurance being the well-organized structure.

Register in the MITACS portal — https://globalink.mitacs.ca/gri/index.html (This will test your patience, I tell you. To write this article I tried registering myself and it took me 20 minutes to log into the portal even at 1 AM in the night) The section Personal Information implores basic details. I understand you all have a nicely structured CV/Resume of your own, however, MITACS wants it to be tailored according to their need. So strictly follow their guidelines and upload the CV/Resume. Under the Education section, you will have to upload your transcript (don’t mind the fact that they have asked it 4 times, just upload it once). The English proficiency exam is not compulsory and will not increase or decrease your chances of getting the scholarship. The Research section is the most important and scrutinized one of all. It has four sub-sections. Take your time to fill out each of them. MITACS has a word limit, mind you, so you need to learn to omit superfluous words and be succinct. For ‘General Description of Skills, Background Knowledge, and Research Interests’, I wrote bullet points under each of the topics separately. Skills here refer to your software (and maybe soft skills) and technical skills. Jot down your coursework in the Background Knowledge and anything else if necessary.

‘Notable Achievements’ is pretty self-explanatory. Please include only those that you think are really noteworthy and don’t use terms which they will not understand (such as ‘Festember’, ‘Pragyan’, give a brief description if you’re mentioning them). ‘Research Rationale’ was the hardest for me to write in spite of it being 200 words. When it comes to SOP’s, the shorter the word limit, the harder it gets. Think about why you really want to pursue research, if you feel there is a personal and emotional connection to it then do mention it. If you had any life-changing events or lectures, mention them. Write it once, come back after a day and read it afresh. Edit it, and do the same at least 4–5 times. I would definitely not say that this decides whether or not you get it, but it’s important.

5) They have given a survey under the ‘Research Rationale’. To date, I do not know for what reason, but all I can say is be consistent with every answer. And finally, write about your research in the past in the last section.

6) The toughest part I would say is choosing the projects. And since there are so many and we have amazing net speed here, use as many filters as you can and narrow down the areas to suit your needs. I faced the problem where I had to the trade-off between a good project and a good university. I went ahead with the good university, but I feel like that was a slight error on my part. If you have the same conundrum, go with a good project if you really like it.

Please, please don’t wait till the last day to do something. I still remember on the last night of the deadline I remembered something which I had to change. It was 2 hours before the deadline and I took a big leap of faith by trying to change it. Do not do that, finish your application 10 days in advance and keep proof-reading it every two days. Also, if you did not know already, DO NOT mail any of the professors separately. MITACS highly discourages that practice (which only saves you more time). Once you’re done with the application, you might or might not get interview calls from Professors. I got 2 interviews but many of my knows didn’t get any interviews, so if you don’t there is no need to worry. Some professors just like to talk and interact once before they take a student in and some feel that your application is enough. Some might be just too busy.

The first phase of results will be announced in mid-December itself which will give you plenty of time to hunt for alternatives if needed. The second phase comes out in early January, but they give you only a fortnight or so to agree or decline.

Stipend: 200 Canadian dollars every week + flight fare