ICE Intern Talk — RWTH-Aachen

My name is Sanjay Chandrashekar, and I pursued an internship at RWTH-Aachen University this summer as a research assistant under Dr Ngo at the Helmholtz Institute for Biomedical Technology. I would like to share my work experiences and also answer some FAQs related to my internship.

1. Please give us a few details about the organization

The German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) is a scholarship scheme aimed primarily at Undergraduates and PhDs, who want to do their studies in Germany. In particular, DAAD-WISE (Working Internships In Science and Engineering), which is what we’re supposed to enrol in, offers scholarships for UG students from several countries, one of them being India. This is only applicable to Centrally Funded Technical Institutes and other highly reputed private institutes like BITS. Mind you; this is not an internship as such, DAAD only provides funding so that it covers most of your living and travel expenses. Also, it offers funding only for public universities in Germany. Unlike MITACS or IUSSTF-Viterbi program, it does not give you the topics for the internships before-hand. You’re supposed to contact professors on your own, based on your field of interest, then fill up all documents related to your application. DAAD only reviews these and decides whether you’re worthy of the funding or not. They do not help you with finding intern guides, nor with flight ticket and accommodation bookings etc. All they’ll provide you is 1050 euros for travel expenses and 25 euros a day during your intern. It may be just enough, considering the cost of living, provided you don’t travel much, and you cook by yourself.

DAAD-WISE generally funds those students having a good CGPA (9.5+). However, those who are having a CGPA of 9.3+ can also apply provided they have constructed a good Statement of Purpose (SoP), a strong CV, and a strong Letter of Recommendation (LoR) from a professor, holding a really good position. For example, I got my LoR from a professor who was a department head (HoD) and was a DAAD fellow (staff of DAAD), coincidentally.

2. Under who did you work during the internship?

I am working under Dr Ngo, faculty in the department of Medical Information Technology at the Helmholtz Institute for Biomedical Technology at RWTH-Aachen University.

Initially, I was offered a project in ‘Exoskeleton’, which is a device used to assist the mobility needs for patients suffering from neuro-muscular disorders, stroke etc. Based on signals from the accelerometer (gait signals), the controller acts such that it helps in the movement of the patient. It is a very classic control theory application. My task was to try out different control strategies from whatever I had learnt and do signal processing on the gait signal data.

However, due to COVID-19, the scholarship got cancelled, but I was able to work under him remotely (online internship). My tasks were heavily reduced, since, obviously, we can’t work on something as huge as an exoskeleton remotely. Currently, I’m working on signal processing of the data, and trying to figure out algorithms such that it correctly detects the time stamp at which the foot strikes the ground (peak detection), and trying to correlate data from the accelerometer and data obtained from an optical sensor which tracks the 3-D coordinates of the person’s foot, from which acceleration can be obtained.

3. Could you describe yourself in a few words?

I’m someone who is passionate about teaching and hopes to become a professor one day, in an eminent institute and carry out research projects that have some societal impact and help mankind. That is the ideal quality of an engineer and a researcher.

4. Name a few universities which are linked to this organization.

The group of institutes associated with DAAD are often called the TU9 universities, which are the best universities in Germany, and a few are among the top in Europe itself. These are TU Munich, RWTH-Aachen, TU Berlin, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, TU Dresden etc. Refer to this link for all the nine universities: https://www.tu9-universities.de/.

There’s tons of research going on in these universities, and professors and scholars don’t have the time to do everything. Hence they actually lookout for good, talented, and sincere students who are willing to finish their work quickly. Although all the research topics may look like Greek and Latin, they’re not that tough to handle once we get the hang of it.

For topics related to our department, I would suggest to check out the Electrical department and Mechanical as well (In some universities, control theory comes under mechanical engineering).

For control theory and robotics, in particular, there’s a separate department with around 10–15 topics in TU Munich. The topics are very relevant to whatever students learn in their 3rd year and will be of great use during the internship as well. There’s a lot of signal processing topics to choose from as well, in particular, biomedical signal processing. Hence, if the students are well versed in DSP and Signals and Systems, it offers a huge edge over others. Also, Biomedical signal processing is a booming field right now, since computational power has increased, it’ll create a boost when added to your CV, especially for higher studies.

TU Berlin, TU Munich and RWTH-Aachen are really good universities for control engineering.

5. What were the steps taken to prepare for the application process, and how was the overall process from application till selection?

Here’s what I shall be suggesting the current 3rd years to follow:

a. Prepare your SoP, CV and a cover letter template before the end of August. Also, decide on a few research topics that you’re interested in, before-hand. There are tons of sites available on the internet to help you with SoP. Prepare your CV such that it should have the following:

· Ensure that your CV consists of all the courses you’ve done, and currently doing. Mention any Hons. Course if you’re doing it.

· Mention your education history, including 12th standard and B.Tech along with CGPA. Don’t include your 10th standard.

· Mention all the achievements

· Mention all your experiences that you have worked in an industry or lab etc. Elaborate by giving a few points which summarizes the tasks given to you.

· Mention all the projects and the mini-projects that you had undertaken as a part of course-work.

· Mention the technical skills, like what all programming languages and software you know.

· Finally, mention the extra-curricular activities which show your leadership skills. Elaborate your tasks a bit because the professors from Germany may not know about the organization you are a part of. These tasks are very important in showcasing your abilities.

· Ensure that your CV is really attractive to the professors and present everything in a crisp manner.

· Add publications if you have any. It’ll boost your chances a lot.

b. Search all the TU9 universities for topics which are related to your field of interest. Look at QS rankings for guidance, but don’t limit yourselves only to the top-ranked universities. Look at the research profiles of faculties and PhD scholars and note down their names and email-ids on an excel sheet for reference.

My field of interest was in Control theory and signal processing. I first searched for control engineering departments in TU Munich, since it was ranked the best university in Germany, and then went on to RWTH-Aachen, noted down several faculties in the Process Control department, and TU Berlin, control engineering department.

c. Start emailing them. Here’s the difficult part. They generally ignore all internship-related mails, irrespective of how talented you are. There are some tricks that can be followed to ensure they end up reading it.

· Never, ever, ever send one application letter to all the professors at the same time by putting CC. This is the worst form of insult for them, and it will ensure that you won’t get any reply.

· Your cover letter is very important. The first paragraph can be the same for all, introducing yourself. Mention your CGPA and rank in the cover letter itself. Then talk about your research interests and how it aligns with theirs. Please go through a few research publications of theirs and try to understand what they’re doing. Mention that you have gone through their papers and found it interesting and aligned with your topic of interest.

Then quickly mention where you did your second-year intern (if any), and your learning experiences from it. Tell it in detail if the professors’ topic matches with your previous year’s topic.

This is the most important. Inform that all your expenses are taken care of by DAAD, or else they’ll just find an excuse to reject you, saying they don’t have funds.

· The subject of the mail is equally important. Do not put “Request for Summer intern … “. It immediately goes to spam. Try not to mention the word ‘intern’ in the subject. Instead, go for “Reg: Request for Summer research projects”.

· Send your CV and your transcripts. But never attach them. Else it goes to spam. Add them in the form of a google drive link.

· The salutations are even more important. Never address the professor by “Dear Sir” or “Dear first_name”. This creates a very bad impression. Always address the faculties by their surname. For example, you want to address Karl Shultz, who holds a PhD. Address him by “Dear Dr. Shultz “.

· Time of sending is also important. Germans always check their emails at 9 am, 12 noon and 5 pm. Ensure that it reaches them first thing in the morning. Schedule all your mails such that it is sent at 9 am German time.

· They generally take time to reply, because of their busy schedule, especially professors. Wait for 3–4 days, then send a polite reminder mail. In my case, they responded immediately after sending one remainder.

· Usually, professors don’t have time to view all these. In these cases, it is better to contact the research scholar under him, who’ll reply much faster.

d. Most of the replies will end up in rejection. If they’re keen on selecting you, they’ll usually ask for an interview. It won’t be strict. They’ll just question a bit about your courses.

In my case, I sent around 13 mails out of which 10 replied. 8 rejected, stating some reason or the other. Two had accepted, I simply went for the one that had a higher ranking. I contacted one research scholar who didn’t have a vacant position for me but ended up giving my application to other people. One of them contacted me and selected me even without an interview.

If you do the entire mail-sending correctly, you’ll definitely get positive replies within at least a month. Otherwise, all your mails will just end up going to spam.

e. After getting accepted by the professor, give yourselves a nice applause because the most hectic job is over. However, filling up the application form will take a long time, and it is suggested that you receive your acceptance around the first week of October. The deadline is usually around the 1st week of November.

Tons of formalities are required, which are usually stated in the DAAD portal once you register. Acquiring NOCs from HoD, acceptance letter from your host university, CV, SoP, Transcripts etc. will consume a lot of time. After which you’ll have to courier all the documents to their office in Delhi.

Along with the application documents, they’ll ask you to send one LoR. Here’s where you can compensate if you have a CG of less than 9.5. Try to get the LoR from a faculty whom you know very well and who is in a high position. In my case, I took the LoR from a professor at IIT-M, whom I interned under, during my 2nd year, and was a staff of DAAD and an HoD. So, it would have definitely had a strong impact.

If there are any corrections after you have submitted, DAAD will contact you via phone or mail and will inform you to do the needful. There were a lot of confusions in my case; I ended up submitting it in a haphazard manner, at the last minute. Even if you do so, don’t worry, the DAAD office will inform you to make the corrections and will definitely not cancel the application.

6. How was your experience under that professor?

It was really good. He always scheduled appointments and was always on time (German punctuality). He always encouraged discussions and new ideas. I always look forward to having skype calls with him. While working under him, more than just work, it had become fun. I’m pretty sure all the faculty members in German universities are like this.

The only problem was that college end-semester exams came in the middle and disrupted everything. But he understood my problem very well and gave nearly a month off despite the fact that he had deadlines for this project.

7. What is the scope for research/ higher studies after this intern?

One big advantage is that if you work well during the internship, you’ll get a LoR from one of the top universities in the world. This really boosts up your application for higher studies, especially for European universities, which considers DAAD to be a prestigious scholarship program. Getting a DAAD fellowship is in itself an achievement that can be added to your CV.

8. How many students get selected each year? Which are the institutions they apply to generally?

Around 10 students got selected in my batch. If you have a CGPA of 9.5+, along with an acceptance letter from a German professor, you’ll definitely get selected for this programme.

All the students generally apply to the TU9 universities. There are exceptions, where they apply to certain government-funded labs.

9. What are some general suggestions that you’d like to give?

a. Try to take up advanced courses during the 3rd year, which will really help you in your intern. I would suggest taking DSP, Medical Instrumentation, Neural Networks and Fuzzy logic, Artificial Neural Networks, Pattern recognition. There is a lot of research going on in these fields. Also, try to do a few online courses like Machine learning from Coursera.

Subjects like Medical Instrumentation are unique to our department. Hence, when you apply to projects related to biomedical engineering, this offers a HUGE edge over others. For example, my guide is working on another project, “impedance-based” measurement of respiration rate, which is taught in medical instrumentation. Knowledge of ECG, EEG, EMG offers a really good advantage.

b. Try to get contacts of German professors from our department itself. Some faculties regularly visit German universities for research collaborations. For example, Dr P. A. Karthick knows a lot of German professors and guided me a lot during my application process.

c. Try to get your LoR from a professor whom you very well know and is in a high position. If you did your 2nd-year intern under an IIT prof or IISc faculty, try to get it from them.

d. Try not to send multiple emails within the same department. The faculties usually talk to each other about these things, and it creates a bad impression about you.

e. Although DAAD generally takes in only 9.5+ CGPA students, this time I don’t think it’s going to be the case. As far as I know, they’re planning to fund more people, since they had mailed us stating that we can apply next year. I don’t think anyone from the previous batch is even going to apply again. Hence, it is expected that the number of people being funded is going to be more. So, those who are having 9.3+ CGPA also have a good chance this time. In this case, try to get a good LoR, create a strong CV and a unique SoP. The best way to compensate would be to talk to your current intern guide and check if it is possible to convert your current work into a publication.

If you need any help regarding the application process, you may contact me anytime

Phone Number: +91 9176662362.

Good luck and All The Best for your future research life!

An initiative of SENSORS NIT TRICHY, the annual technical symposium of the Department of Instrumentation and Control Engineering of NIT Trichy

Edited and interviewed by Kumaresh Balaji

Poster Design by Karthikeyan Venkateswaran