Hey, everyone! I'm Nirmal Agarwal, a Y19 student double majoring in Computer Science Engineering and Mathematics & Scientific Computing. This blog is about the experiences that I tried to gain during my second year summers and How they helped me get a third-year summer internship at A.P.T. Portfolio in Quantitative Trader Profile.
I'll start with a bit of background about myself. During my first year summers, I did a part-time internship at sirpi.io in Data Science Profile & I did two projects in Finance and Analytics Club. One project was Mean Reversion Trading Strategy, and another one was Image Processing in Finance. So, these were the major projects/internships that I had undertaken before trying for opportunities during my second year. Along with this, I was learning Machine Learning through online resources & participated in a few ML Hackathons with my wingmates.
Application Process:
I'll talk a little about the entire process. So, initially, I was sure that I wanted to do SURGE under the supervision of a professor in the M.T.H. Department working in the Statistics field. But, the professors I was interested in doing projects with were busy in the summers. I had applied to a few start-ups through S.I.P. but decided not to pursue the same. Besides applying for these start-ups, I was actively looking for opportunities coming through AnC mails, and along with that, I mailed Prof. Veena Bansal (IME Dept.) for a project in Applied ML. I came across an AnC mail citing an Internship opportunity at Styldod for Machine Learning Research and Development Profile. I sent my resume to the company, and they shortlisted me for the interview. My interview was scheduled with the C.E.O. (IITD Alumni). Before the interview, he gave me a research paper to read. In the interview, he asked me to share my understanding of the paper. He was impressed with my points and then explained the kind of work they do at Styldod. I was selected for the summer internship. After a week, Prof. Veena Bansal accepted my request and agreed to the summer project.
Experience:
Styldod is a USA-based Tech Start-up. Out of the four founders, three were I.I.T. graduates (IITK, IITD, IITB). I was working on a problem that had been pending for the last few months, and its solution was necessary for the product that the company was developing. I was assigned a supervisor with whom I used to discuss my approach and ideas. There were multiple meetings in a day with my mentor and the C.E.O. (IITD Alumni). My work mainly was to search for appropriate ML models for a sub-problem, implement the model and make changes in the codes to improve the accuracy and efficiency.
I had never worked on Computer Vision problems, so it was challenging in the start where I needed to learn OpenCV. But at the same time, it was interesting because whatever work I was doing was directly impacting the company positively and helping them generate revenue and to reach their end goal.
For the ML project by Veena Bansal Ma'am, we were 7-8 students working on a project, "Data Quality- How to Judge". In the initial half of the project, our main task was to shape the problem and decide what exactly we wanted to work on. So to pursue the project, we took Credit Card Fraud detection Dataset to prove the theory. Ma'am gave us a research paper, and our task was to understand, implement and derive insights from the same. The project went pretty well, and we got the desired results in the end. Ma'am asked us to write a conference paper on our work, but most of our teammates were occupied with the intern season preparation since summers were ending.
Along with all these, during the summer, I contacted Y16, Y17 seniors working in corporate or pursuing masters/Ph.D. in foreign universities for advice. After discussing with them, I prioritized the roles I wanted to pursue in the future. Quant/Data Science at the top and Consulting/Research at the bottom.
Resume Making:
I started making my resume a couple of weeks before S.I.P. I saw many resumes of Y16, Y17 & Y18 seniors to get an idea of the content and how to present it. I gathered all the content (Academic achievements, Projects, PoRs, Coursework, etc.) and contacted seniors for a good resume template. I Compiled all the content on 1 page and then contacted some Y18 seniors to review my resume. After getting it reviewed by 5-6 seniors and making relevant changes, I completed the resume-making part 4 days before the SIP. Because I had my 2nd-year resume, it didn't take a lot of effort to convert it to an S.P.O. intern resume. I would recommend Y20s make a resume in December to apply for internship opportunities through S.I.P. & AnC mails.
Conclusion:
Overall it was a great experience, and time management was the key during summers 2021, which helped me manage Styldod Intern, Project & CoSHA work. Styldod start-up culture fascinated me a lot due to which I decided to work for 3rd year summers in a company which doesn't have a large number of employees. I would Advise the Y20s to contact seniors for internship preparations/resume making, etc. If you are interested in a particular field, then IITK seniors working in that field will give you the best idea about the work experience. If you want to know anything else about the application progress or internship preparation or progress, you can contact me.I have attached the link to my 2nd-year & S.P.O. resume in the blog itself.
Comments