Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Wanna Intern With Us?

Q) What is the duration of the internship programme?
There isn't a preset duration, but we expect you to intern with us for atleast a month's time (and at most a life time ;-) )

Q) Who all are eligible?
We prefer that are interns are from BE/Btech background. The main pre-requisite would be a good flair for mathematics, by that we mean you shouldn't be terrified of mathematics. You needn't be trained, but must be trainable. You should have studied discrete mathematics and calculus and must be knowing atleast one Programming language (Apart from knowing a programming language, knowledge of tamil language is prefered - especially when it comes to bargaining with the heroes of Chennai a.k.a auto-waalas).

We generally filter students based on their CGPA, but given that most of the outstanding researchers (including me ahem ahem ;-) ) have been bad at scoring at the undergrad level, if you think you didn't hear a reply from us and still think that you are as eligible as anyone else, you can try getting your undergrad teacher to speak to us and recommend you. We will surely consider you based on his/her recommendation and his/her credential :-)

Please note that we have had interns who weren't mathematically motivated who found nothing except the mid-day lunch interesting. We wouldn't recommend you to apply if math terrifies you (unless you are a die hard foodie ;-))

A good yardstick to check your eligibility is to try understanding this magnificent blog written by one of our magnanimous interns Shruthi Nayak (http://algorithinking.blogspot.com/2011/08/in-quest-of-best.html or any other article from this blog site, all the articles are equally good). You shouldn't take more than a couple of hours to understand the article. If you directly get in touch with Shruthi and acquire the necessary gyan, it wouldn't be considered match fixing, we in fact will invite you with a red carpet appreciating your PR skills :-)

Q) What is the selection process?
You must send us your resume to sudarshansudarshan@gmail.com and we will get back to you. To increase your chances, it would be great if you can get a reference from one of your teachers. We value recommendations more than CGPA.

Q) Why are we offering this internship?
Not because of joblessness but because of our job-incompleteness that we are open for internships (for undergrad students in particular). It has been our experience over the years that our country houses tons and tons of motivated undergrad souls who go void of any nurturing at all. We thrive to provide sun light, water for the budding saplings and leave it to mother India to pluck the fruits.

Q) What does it cost to intern at ISI chennai?
Interest + passion! period.
(pre-paid only!)

Q) What will an internship comprise of?
There will be three components in our internship programme:

a) The learning component:
You will be given books/papers to read or/and videos to watch. We have Ranchoddas Shamaldas Chanchad ("Rancho") on our advisory committe who has asked us not to evaluate you in a typical examination style. We instead would like to see you get inquisitive about the topics you study. You can bombard us with your questions and you will see one of the two things happen.
We won't be asking to undergo an examination/test. We instead will expect you to get inquisitive and ASK US QUESTIONS. If we are unable to answer your question we will assign that as your research topic (not kidding). *wink*

b) The training component:
We will deliver on a regular basis self-contained lectures on topics that are of research interest to us. The best part of this component is the best infrastructure that our institute houses - our intellectual rockstar Prof. CPR will deliver a few live performances and you will really know what I mean when you meet him :-))

c) The research component:
a and b would lead to questions that an inquisitive mind might want to ponder. Once you find yourself an interesting question, we will discuss and brain storm at length to help you fetch yourself an answer. It is this phase that our interns enjoy the most. The judge and the jury would envy the rigour with which our discussions are carried out. Best part, it is always done over a cup of coffee and no one is deemed criminal at the end of our discussions :-)

In this phase called the researcher's high, the adrenaline rush and the endorphin release will make you have less respect for tobacco, nicotine and cocaine consumers!

(suggested viewing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srSbAazoOr8)

Q) Food + Accommodation ?
Interns must manage their accommodation themselves. ISI will not be able to provide or help you in this regard. Areas close to our institute are Adyar, Indiranagar, Gandhinagar, Taramani. There are several Paying Guest facility providers in these areas. One can try www.justdial.com  www.sulekha.com, www.adyartimes.in . You must be really unlucky to not find yourself a PG accommodation despite going through these sites. There is a youth hostel in Indira nagar (2 kms from our institute) where you can stay for 2 to 3 days (150/- per day and one is not allowed to stay beyond 4 days) and search for a PG accommodation meanwhile.  Price of a PG ranges from 3,500/- to 6500/- depending upon the facilities offered. Lunch is provided at a nominal cost in our institute.

Q) Hey do I get to talk to people who interned with you previously?
Here are the testimonials.

Q) Why should one do an internship?
If you haven't found yourself an answer yet, we strongly encourage you to stay back home and watch Big-Boss and Big-Bang-theory (we particularly recommend the latter, given that we were told it helps you enhance your vocabulary to an extent that you needn't prepare for your gre/toefl).

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Watch the video and pictures below to get an idea of what goes in here!!!!!
An Exemplary Discussion:
(Participants: Amitash, Vijesh and Shruthi)




CPR Delivering a lecture!



Celebrated one of our interns' (Shruthi Nayak) b'day



 Vijesh and Vijay at the feet of Srinivasa Ramanujan Iyengar the mathematician 



 Interns working on an assignment



 Happy interns




 We discuss at ice cream parlous too (not kidding)




One cool destination that our interns enjoy visiting (5 kms from our institute)
  



Lunch and movie time....
The Panda Team!




Thinking cap on!



The question time!




Our popular Adda 



Troubleshooters at their best



 Vijesh trying to sell his idea to the interns
(Sachin and Sridhar) from PSG Coimbatore



The terrific team!



 Vijesh at his best...


 
My sincere interns welcoming me for lecture



 Anddd this is what happens when I am not around!!!!!


 This is what I do when I am annoyed with my interns
(about to take a WWF jump!)