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76 lines
6.6 KiB
Markdown
---
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layout: post
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title: "Summer Diaries: McGill University, Canada (MITACS)"
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category: summer2022
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tags: [wona, column]
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author: "Sajag Swami"
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image: sajag-s-intern-cover.png
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excerpt: "I gained more insight into what goes into research than I ever thought possible in a 12-week-long internship."
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---
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## Background
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In my third semester, I got interested in the application of data science in drawing inferences from physical activity data. I cold-mailed a few profs whose work had piqued my interest and got a research internship for the summer of 2021. This internship gave me a good insight into the fundamentals of research. I enjoyed the work and almost always learned something new in the weekly meetings with my supervisor. After this internship, I wanted to work on another research project to learn something new and apply what I’d learned.
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As the intern season drew close, I faced a dilemma: whether I should try for on-campus internships or focus on research internships. Peer pressure is not something that has ever intimidated me, but during the intern season, I could feel it as I saw my friends land internships at some fantastic firms.
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I spent a few days contemplating whether to try for on-campus internships and decided against it and instead chose to focus solely on research programs as I wanted to explore the research domain further. Before following through with this gambit, I consulted some of my seniors, who gave me good advice, strengthening my resolve to pursue a research internship.
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## MITACS
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MITACS Globalink is a Research Internship Program funded by MITACS Canada which invites undergraduate students from across the world to pursue a research internship for 12 weeks at a Canadian university. The amount of funding one receives is quite substantial (~9000 CAD during my time). Another perk of this program is that MITACS Globalink interns are eligible to receive a one-time award of 15,000 CAD if they return to Canada for full master’s or Ph.D. programs or Postdoctoral fellowships.
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The application process and eligibility criteria can change over time. Thus, I believe it’s best to visit the Globalink website for the latest details. The application process is pretty straightforward.
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MITACS was the only research program I applied to. I didn’t have any interviews for my selection, but I had many friends who had multiple interviews. I got my selection mail in the second week of December 2021.
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## Montréal
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Montréal is the largest city in Canada's Québec province. French is the city's official language. Fitting in a new town is always challenging, but Montréal had a certain je ne sais quoi that proved quite appealing, and I have loved it since the day I landed there. What I liked the most about the city was that despite living downtown, nature was just a stone’s throw away. Mt. Royal (which lends Montréal its name) was less than 2km from my home, and I often went running there.
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Montréal is lovely in summer with its numerous musical, cultural, firework, and food festivals. It has some scenic biking trails as well - the Lachine canal, for instance, has an excellent route that showcases some of Montréal’s dynamic landscape: parks, skyscrapers, and historic buildings.
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## McGill University
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McGill University’s main campus is in a unique location between downtown Montreal and Mount Royal Park. It has some historic buildings. On the days I didn’t go to the lab, I preferred working from McGill Library. When the skies were clear, I worked from the green spaces on the campus, where squirrels often used to join me for lunch.
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## Work
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As a part of my project, I needed to study the role of life stress in the risk of Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD). I had access to a dataset of residents of Montréal, which I used for my study. I employed statistical tools like latent profile analysis, multiple regressions, hierarchical regressions, etc., to meet the two objectives.
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I had weekly lab meetings with my supervisor where I’d report my progress and obtain feedback which helped optimize the work for the following week. I worked closely with my supervising professor and postdoc and learned a lot from them. For instance, my professor taught me how to evaluate results from the perspective of clinical interpretability, which is often quite different from how one considers results from a purely statistical standpoint.
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## Memories (to last a lifetime)
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I joined McGill Outdoors Club and attended its weekly meetings every Wednesday, where we played ultimate frisbee and discussed future trips. I met some of my best friends at these meetings.
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As Montréal is a multicultural city, I had the opportunity to interact with people from all across the world, quite literally. France, China, Brazil, Germany, Korea, Mexico, Iran, Hong Kong, Egypt, Spain, Japan, Colombia, etc.
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This was the first time I had this opportunity, and interacting with and making friends with people from across the world was a pretty exciting and fun experience.
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I went on trips almost every weekend. I spent one weekend in Ontario, where I got to witness the beauty that’s Niagara and Toronto with its spectacular skyline. Thanks to this trip, I made some terrific friends with whom I went on many other trips. Québec has quite a few National parks, and I visited some of them. I also went biking to some quaint towns close to Montréal.
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I spent my last Sunday at the Osheaga Music Festival, where I watched goosebumps-inducing live performances by Glass Animals and Dua Lipa.
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## Concluding thoughts
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This was the first time that I’d traveled to a foreign land. I had to take care of almost everything: buy my groceries, cook my food, clean my apartment, and take out the garbage. I believe this experience of living independently will be helpful in the future irrespective of choosing a life in a corporate setting or a life in academia.
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All in all, it was a life-changing experience for me personally. I gained more insight into what goes into research than I ever thought possible in a 12-week-long internship.
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Meeting people from across the world and making new friends had to be the best part of this internship.
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For anyone aspiring for a research internship, if you’re eligible for MITACS, do consider applying for it.
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