How to apply for internships to universities and colleges?

I am writing this post specifically as a reply to the question, many students have asked me in the past, and the same I have asked my seniors in my initial years.  How to apply for internships in a university or a college which does not offer any structural program to apply but definitely you would have seen your friends working there.

Let me start by saying that there is no college or university in India that does not offer an intern, but along with this, I would definitely say that there are very few institutes that offer a structured program for interns intake which seriously leave us with the question, how to go for it?

Well, I would start with a very common line (probably read 100 times) which states that before you go for an intern, just give a good thought about your area of interest. Why am I saying this? The reason is that it might be possible that you end up doing an intern which you can’t finish it let alone writing it in CV.

I would share my personal experience here about a technical intern that I did in my second year. Obviously I was pretty happy as the intern was in one of the esteemed institutes of India but as far as the current scenario is concerned, I would probably be sitting for some non-tech placements and obviously there I will face a tough time if I mention your technical expertise.

Secondly, the major question that most students ask about is the “contacts” of the professors? Guys, let me tell you that every major university, institute or college has a well managed faculty page with all information made available about every professor working in that institution.

Now let’s come to the major part, how to apply?

Let me first draw some major instances that I have come across till now.

1)      Majority of the students copy all the email ids in their mail and press a “send” to all of them with a single click. (Wow, in 2 minutes, I sent mails to 50 professors).

2)      Second major concern is the cover letter that is required in the mail you send and many students fail to draft it professionally and end up with no affirmative replies from the professors

3)      Other major issue with some students is their CV. I would request every student to get his CV verified, evaluated from your seniors. I can assure you one thing that your selection for an intern actually depends on this point.

Just think about the above mentioned points whereas in the meanwhile, I will prepare the next part of this post where I would discuss the method I chose for my applications along with the right time to apply for bagging a decent intern.

Click on the link to read How to approach professor for internships to universities and colleges?

Click on the link to read How Professors select Interns?