Budding scientists will find refuge at Bangalore's Indian Institute of Science this summer

Come May, the century-old Indian Institute of Science (IISc) will host summer internship programmes for engineering students from various educational institutions in the country.

The department of civil engineering at IISc has already invited applications from second and third year students who are pursuing their BE/BTech courses in Civil Engineering, to take part in their internship programme. The other departments are in the process of inviting applications from students.

The internship programmes at the institute are supported by the University Grants Commission (UGC). The selected students will be paid a monthly stipend of Rs3,000 during their period of work at the institute.

“The idea of having special summer internship programmes is to motivate and facilitate undergraduate students to take up research work at an early stage of their career,” said Dr P Anbazhagan, lecturer at the department of civil engineering, IISc, and programme coordinator.

“The institute also wants to create an opportunity for young students to meet and exchange ideas with the faculty members of various departments,” he added.
Over the years, most of the interns, who take part in the programmes, are undergraduate engineering students from various National Institutes of Technology (NITs) and Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) across the country.

The internship programmes by various departments of IISc are free of cost and extend up to three months. Some of the popular departments that offer internship programmes are the department of Computer Science and Automation, department of Aerospace Engineering and department of Electrical Engineering, to name a few. Last year, several departments received more than 1,000 applications each, of which they selected a few students as interns. Ten to 50 interns are taken by each department depending on their capacity and infrastructure availability.

“IISc internship programmes are the best grooming grounds for aspiring scientists. We give youngsters a vast canvas to work on their projects and guide them towards their goals,” said SN Omkar, principal research scientist of the Aerospace Engineering department at IISc. As part of the internship, each student does a mini project under the guidance of the institute’s faculty members. Interns also get a chance to meet young researchers in various departments, visit modern research facilities in the institute and participate in seminars and lectures hosted at IISc during their stay.

The programmes are a big hit with aspiring scientists. Kakoli Das, who is pursuing her engineering at RV College of Engineering, Bangalore, said she would be applying for internship programme at the institute, “It has access to the best laboratories and faculties in the country.”