Add two intern diaries.

_posts/2022-09-23-intern-diaries-amitesh-u.md

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+---
+layout: post
+title: "Summer Diaries: University of Manitoba, Canada (MITACS)"
+category: summer2022
+tags: [wona, column]
+author: "Amitesh Uppal"
+image: amitesh-u-intern-cover.png
+excerpt: "My attempt to summarize the mind-boggling journey I have had in the summer of 2022, from being a designer to shifting into the field of machine learning and economics to landing a research internship at the University of Manitoba via MITACS Globalink."
+---
+
+## Introduction
+
+My attempt to summarize the mind-boggling journey I have had in the summer of 2022, from being a designer to shifting into the field of machine learning and economics to landing a research internship in the Department of Economics at the University of Manitoba via the MITACS Globalink program, to having a fruitful and joyous summer in Canada.
+
+## Background
+
+I was always fascinated by Mathematics since my school-days. I got Biotechnology as my major in IITR, but I wanted to do something related to Mathematics. So I started learning Machine Learning in my sophomore year and did some projects to gain experience. While doing Machine Learning, I learned about its application in Economics and Finance. So I talked to some seniors and my brother, who is also IITR Alumni, to get a roadmap for starting Finance. At last, to get some research experience, I did a project under a professor at the Department of Economics to gain insights into pursuing Research.
+
+The experience of working with a professor motivated me to apply for various Research Internship opportunities related to Applied Machine Learning and Finance.
+
+While looking for research internships, I learned about various programs like NTU India Connect, DAAD, MITACS etc. So I applied to NTU India Connect (from Jan to June) and MITACS (for summers). I was unable to apply for DAAD due to the high CGPA criteria.
+
+Surprisingly, I got offers from NTU and MITACS in the field 0f Time series analysis with Deep Learning Techniques and econometrics, respectively. From being a non-core guy to pursuing non-core Research, It was a drastic change in my life.
+
+## Application
+
+MITACS is a Non Profit organization that encourages students to pursue Research in Canadian Universities. Its application process is very smooth for both professor and the applicant. Applicants select 3-7 projects in which they are interested along with academic documents and reference letters. 
+
+MITACS then shortlists based on experience and CGPA criteria, after which they send the applications to Professors.
+
+I went to have an interview with the professor in which she talked to me about her research project, and she asked me about my approach to the problem statement.
+
+I got matched successfully and was ready to go to Canada for my Internship.
+
+## Project
+
+I did my Internship at the University of Manitoba, Winnipeg. My project was titled 'Economics of Foodborne Illness Outbreaks', in which I had to use food items' recalls news data and Google Trends data to find a relationship between recalls and prices of that crops by creating a time series database of google trends data and crop prices data using econometric methods.
+
+I got to learn a lot of things during my project and was able to grasp some knowledge about econometric and agricultural economics during my whole timeline.
+
+I was provided office space by my supervisor in which I could work freely, and as this was a computational project, She provided me with the freedom to work from home too.
+
+In order to learn more, my supervisor encouraged me to go to an academic conference at the university, where I got to learn new skills which were relevant to the project and meet other professors and students from different universities, which was very exciting for me as it was my first academic conference.
+
+## Life at Manitoba
+
+I got accommodation at the University dorm, where I got a hostel lifestyle which I thought I would have missed there. I got to meet many international students there, and we exchanged our cultures and learned more about each other.
+
+Winnipeg is a city that has a harsh climate. I was fortunate to live in summers as the temperature drops to -30 degrees there in winters. 
+
+It is not a very big city and can be covered in a short period, which made me move out of Winnipeg to explore other Canadian provinces.
+
+The lifestyle here is different from big Canadian cities like Toronto and Vancouver. Keep in mind that while applying for universities, you should also consider the location of it, as you also should explore Canada along with the work, to make your experience life remembering.
+
+## Exploring Canada
+
+As Winnipeg is not so travel-friendly, I wanted to explore various cities in Canada. I had the edge that I had my school friends living in Canada. This motivated me to go there and meet them, along with exploring their city as an addition.
+
+I asked my professor to let me work remotely for some time, and she understood enough to allow me to go to travel. I went to Vancouver as my friend lived there and explored British Columbia.
+
+It is a wonderful city with mountains, Skyscrapers and beaches all in the same place, which is very rare for a city. I went on to explore the famous natural beauty of British Columbia and also got to meet my friend after so long.
+
+I also went to Toronto after my Internship got over to explore the state of Ontario. The skyscrapers and adventure activities in Toronto were worth experiencing, and I also went to see Niagara Falls, which was my dream to visit while planning my journey to Canada.
+
+I was unfortunate not to explore Quebec and Alberta as they were also on my travel bucket list, but due to work engagements, I had to settle with Ontario and British Columbia.
+
+## Lifestyle and Routine in Canada
+
+During my initial days, It was very hard for me to adapt to the routine as I needed to do all the stuff like cleaning, cooking, and laundry, to which I was not adapted at all. Thanks to my friends I made at Dorm, I was able to overcome these challenges and learn new skills like cooking which made me realize the importance of home food.
+
+The people in Canada are humble and open. People thank the bus driver for the ride, apologize for obstructing your way and are blunt regarding their opinions which led to a significant amount of changes in my personality while living among them.
+
+I usually worked from the office as it helped me meet new faculties and students of the University of Manitoba and exchange knowledge about their research interests.
+
+## Summing Up
+
+The major takeaway for me was that Research isn’t always as sugar-coated and straightforward. You have got to stumble and explore a lot before you make some progress, especially when you don’t know how to proceed. Having clarity and a record of explored directions helps a lot in these situations.
+
+But honestly, if you are confused regarding sitting for On Campus Internships or opting for Research Internships, I would say from my experience that-
+
+1. interacting with so many people and making new friends
+2. getting to know a new culture
+3. visiting and exploring new places
+4. achieving a sense of doing something which can benefit society
+
+Doing Research with a bunch of international people brings a lot of changes in your personality, and it helps to introspect your future plans. 
+
+Summing up, MITACS has motivated me to pursue higher studies, and I will look for that in my Future.
+
+Cheers!

_posts/2022-09-23-intern-diaries-balaganesh-m.md

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+---
+layout: post
+title: "Summer Diaries: Cisco Systems"
+category: summer2022
+tags: [wona, column]
+author: "Balaganesh Manikandan"
+image: balaganesh-m-intern-cover.png
+excerpt: "Despite working from home, my internship was a valuable learning experience. It taught me more about the field of software development and a few of the technologies used, and how to collaborate with team members and mentors to accomplish a goal."
+---
+
+## Background
+
+Although I was initially unsure about the career path that I was going to pursue, coding has been a passion for me since my schooldays. In my first year, I developed a keen interest in Competitive Programming (CP) and continued to explore other areas of computer science like machine learning in my second year. I also found my core subjects interesting, and I was able to maintain a good CGPA. These were a few of my efforts that helped me land an internship with a reputed company on-campus. 
+
+I am Balaganesh Manikandan, a 4<sup>th</sup> year student of B.Tech, Engineering Physics, and I had the privilege of joining Cisco as an undergraduate intern in software development during the summer of 2022.
+
+## Selection Process
+
+After sending in our resumes, the first stage of the selection process was an online test. The test featured a few coding questions along with MCQs from topics such as networking and operating systems. I believe my performance in the coding questions and the information on my resume helped me reach the next stage, the interviews.
+
+There were three interview rounds that were conducted. The first two rounds were mainly focused on my resume (skills, projects, internships etc.), along with a few simple questions related to data structures and networking. After clearing these rounds, the third round was a short HR round in which we discussed things like preferred work location and the department in which I would like to work. In the end, I was excited to find out that I was one of the five people who were selected for the internship.
+
+## Preparation Tips
+
+1. A good CGPA is important for getting selected for internships/placements – some companies even have CGPA cutoffs. So, ensure that you devote enough attention to your coursework right from your first semester.
+
+2. It is good to have projects on your resume but ensure that you do projects under a professor in IITR or a campus group – this is the only way that you can get them **verified** for your resume. Projects may help shift the interview conversation away from DSA (Data Structures & Algorithms). Also, ensure that you know the fundamentals of all the projects you add to your resume (the interviewers will ask about them).
+
+3. For coding practice, solve problems on GeeksForGeeks and InterviewBit (and Codechef/Codeforces if possible), covering all the major topics in DSA. Participate in coding contests for timed practice (this will be a key in the tests and interviews).
+
+4. Before the interview (or better still, even before applying to the company), it is a good idea to go over the job/internship description to see your roles and responsibilities, necessary/preferred skills etc. Based on these details, try to convince the interviewer that you will be a good fit for the company. At the end of the interview, you could ask relevant questions to the interviewer (when prompted, of course) about the company to show that you really want to work with them.
+
+## Online Internship with Cisco
+
+While some smaller companies were opening their offices, my internship with Cisco (in Bangalore) was completely online. Our onboarding was done on the first day, involving the introduction of all the interns as well as some members of Cisco Bangalore. After our laptops were set up, we were separated into teams, and I was working with five other interns on the “Collaboration” team. As the name suggests, we were working on the software used by Cisco to collaborate with other companies/organizations for various purposes.
+
+The internship was eight weeks long, and the first week mainly involved getting familiar with all the technologies and concepts needed in our internship. After that, we got to pick from 3 projects given by our manager. As it turned out, we picked the projects such that there were 2 interns working under each project, subdividing us into smaller teams. My project involved exploring a mechanism to refresh an MS Teams tab application and track user presence changes in MS Teams (these were likely to be used in the Webex Meetings app for Microsoft Teams). Our code was written mainly in Node JS (along with some HTML, CSS and JS as well).
+
+The project was more of a research-oriented task, and it was not known beforehand whether a solution to our problem existed or not. Instead, our mentors encouraged us to explore as much as possible to see how close we could get to our desired goal. The major limitation we encountered was that Microsoft Teams tabs immediately get destroyed when the user navigates to another tab within Teams. When the tab is loaded again, the web page (which is embedded in the tab) also reloads from scratch, and this type of behaviour was not desirable in our project. Although we could not overcome this issue completely, we found out that it is possible to use a WebSocket connection on the tab to update its contents remotely (as long as the Teams user does not navigate to another tab).
+
+Our mentors were approachable, and we could ask them for help if required. We also had weekly meetings with our mentors where we needed to give demos/presentations showing what we had done each week. This helped improve our presentation skills, and it kept our mentors informed about how much progress we had made (so that they could decide on what was to be done in the next week). Being an online internship, the work timings were quite flexible and could be adjusted according to our convenience (up to some extent).
+
+## Beyond Work Life
+
+There were many online events that were held during our internship period, such as the **Intern Happy Hour** and **Fun Friday**. The Intern Happy Hour was an event in which each intern got a chance to talk to other Cisco interns from across the globe, while the Fun Friday event mainly involved us playing online games with Cisco employees on select Fridays. Cisco also offered swag items to those who were interested (you needed to collect points from other events to purchase the items, though). These events ensured that all the interns would have a memorable experience at Cisco despite the internship being online.
+
+## Summing Things Up
+
+Despite working from home, my internship was a valuable learning experience. It taught me more about the field of software development and a few of the technologies used, and how to collaborate with team members and mentors to accomplish a goal. In addition, I was exposed to the Cisco work culture and noticed how different work life is from school/college life. It was a pleasure to work with Cisco for eight weeks, and I hope to make the most of my experience for my further pursuits.