Preparing for a German Internship though DAAD-WISE

By Kanishk Chaudhary (2018A4PS0481P). He was a recipient of the DAAD-WISE Scholarship for 2021.

What is DAAD-WISE?

DAAD WISE (Working Internships in Science and Engineering) is a program for Indian students in their 3rd year summers (for single degree students) or 3rd/4th year summers (for dual degree students) to pursue a funded internship in a public university/institution in Germany. This internship happens between May to August (for 2 to 3 months), and DAAD funds your travel, accommodation and gives you a healthy stipend. More details in this link.

Deadlines: 1 November for an internship from May/June of next year. e.g. if you're aiming for an internship from 1 June 2022, the deadline to apply will be 1 November 2021 (during your 3-1 for a 3rd yr summer internship).

Scholarship Value: EUR 1050 for travel, EUR 750 / month stipend, additional benefits towards insurance. I've noticed the value increasing every 1 or 2 years.

Procedure: You will first have to receive an acceptance from a Prof/Scientist/Post-Doc working in a public-funded German institution. This involves mailing multiple Profs until you finally get one acceptance. After that, you have to compile the required documents and send them over to DAAD.

Cutoffs: Usually 9.something CG. Some years it was 9.2, 9.3, 9.4 - in this range. Officially, they'll give the cutoff as 8.5 CG, but I've only noticed 9 pointers getting it.

Preparation Strategy

If you're in first year

It's never too early to start preparing. CGPA is an important criterion for selection in DAAD-WISE, so keep your aims high. A 9+ CG by the end of your first year would be an important step forward, although you can always try compensating for a high 8 by doing well in your second year. Ultimately, you would need a minimum of 9.2 or 9.3 CG in your 3-1 to get a decent shot at WISE.

If you're in second year

Improve your CG as much as you can, and explore if a research internship is the right step for you in developing your profile. You can now go 1 step forward in your exploration by finding out which subset within your branch you'd like to go forward with. Every branch has a wide scope with so many things you can work on. Check your 2nd year CDCs, and see which of these subsets would be great for you to further explore. Even your PS-1 experience would help in making a decision.

Also, you would require a reference from a Prof in your university. You can use your 4th semester (2-2) in doing a project under a Prof, or be active in class and make sure that the Prof remembers you well enough to fill in your recommendation.

If you're in third year (or 4th yr for some dualites)

Start with making a CV. I would recommend using any template available at overleaf. Have a look at some seniors' CV and design accordingly. Don't add stuff like schooling, hobbies, etc., you have to make sure that the focus is on your academic and project work. Profs will not have much time to read every single detail in your CV, so keep this in mind.

Time to get an acceptance from a Prof in Germany, and fill in your DAAD-WISE application. Start your cold mailing from the first day of August, and you can continue mailing till early October. Aim for 1 mail every weekday, which you can further increase towards mid-September if you still don't get an official acceptance. I've mentioned more about the cold mailing below. Also, apply for your official transcripts through the AUGSD portal in August only. It takes months for them to send by post, so you do not want to get an additional source of stress in case they do not come by October (Note- if you're reading this post-Covid, in campus, then shouldn't be much of a problem. You can apply for transcripts in Sept as well.)

If you get an official acceptance, it's time to start filling and compiling your documents. The documentation part is mentioned below.

Once you're selected

I can't speak much about this, since it was an online internship for me which I then rejected. However, I am hopeful that it will be in Germany for you. The steps would be simple since DAAD will assist you in every step, right from VISA applications to going to Germany and setting up a bank a/c there. Do learn some basic German and how to cook, especially if you're a vegetarian 🙂.

Cold Mailing

Be prepared to send a lot of emails. Most Professors would either ignore or won't bother to open your mail. If there is a 1% chance of acceptance, it means that you'll have to send 100 emails for 1 acceptance (quick math).

Step 1: Make an excel file of Prof names, email IDs, research interests, University names, etc. You can find Profs by going through faculty profiles of various universities. Make sure that the university is public-funded (like any of the TU9s) or a public institution (like Max Planck).

Step 2: Prepare your mail template. You will certainly have to make it personalised for each Prof because no one likes a mail that looks like spam. Here's the template which I used: (Note - everyone would have their own templates. This one worked for me within 20 mails)

Salutation (in full). Dear Prof. Dr. <full name>,

Para #1 - introduce yourself, and why you are mailing. I, <name>, am a third year student pursuing Bachelors in XXX Engineering (B.E.) at BITS Pilani, one of India's top private engineering colleges and an Institute of Eminence. I have a cumulative GPA of X.XX/10 and currently ranked X in my batch (or any other academic achievement). I am writing this mail seeking a research internship under your guidance, for the summer of 20XX (funded by DAAD-WISE).

Para #2 - talk about their research, convey that you did your homework by going through their publications. I went through a few of your publications in the field of soft robotics. I was particularly intrigued by the idea of using low melting point alloy to stiffen soft robots, and designing and simulating 3D printed soft pneumatic actuators. I would love to explore this field in depth and provide my own inputs like designing a soft gripper to handle fragile products. I am confident that I can apply my knowledge and skills in similar research projects.

Para #3 - overview of your interests, add any project work which was in line with their research. I have keen interests in robotics and computational mechanics. I carried my interest forward this summer, when I did my 7-week remote internship at Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). I worked on developing a model for a mechanically reconfigurable antenna, which can correct surface errors by changing its shape with the help of an actuation system (3 DOF parallel manipulator, end effector algorithm prepared on MATLAB).

Para #4 - conclusions. As mentioned earlier, I would be extremely grateful to pursue a Summer Research Internship (June-July 2021), under your guidance at XX University, Germany. I will be applying for the DAAD-WISE program, which can fully fund my internship, should the application be accepted. Please find my curriculum vitae given in the links below. Looking forward to hearing from you.

Signature. Add something cool, to make an impression. The BITS format which is used by many can be taken. Something like this:

Tips for mailing:

1. Schedule the mail to be sent at 8:00 or 8:01 am German time. This would get your mail to the top of the unread pile whenever they open their mail in the morning.

2. Avoid mailing on Saturdays, Sundays or national holidays.

3. Aim for 1 mail every weekday, you may increase it to 2 mails every weekday if you dont get an acceptance within 30 mails.

4. If you want to track the mail, use Streak only.

5. Follow-ups are important! A simple 1-2 para mail to follow-up / send a gentle reminder at least 3 days after the first mail. Do this for every single mail which has been ignored.

6. Put your CV on Google Drive, change view settings, copy the link and paste it in your mail (either first para or last). Avoid attaching it directly. You will be able to manage and update different versions of your CV, so that's a plus point.

7. Do not get disheartened if you do not receive any reply! Everyone goes through this phase, and it may take more than 100 mails to finally get an acceptance. But keep grinding, don't skip any day for mailing. Be confident in your abilities and you'll get lucky with at least one of these mails.

8. Check your first mail by sending it to a friend, in case all the links and formatting is fine. Also, get it cross-checked through Grammarly for any mistakes.

Documentation Work (once you get a German Prof ready to host)

First, register an account on their portal. Follow whatever steps they have mentioned and then you should get the list of documents that you need to upload.

1. Apply for your official transcripts through AUGSD (or the Academic Dept of your college). This usually takes a long time so be prepared.

2. 2 documents are required from your German host. One will be the Approval Form (whose format you can download from the DAAD WISE webpage). Fill in your personal details and ask your German host to fill their details as well as the title and description of the project work.

3. The 2nd document would be the official invitation letter. This would be in the letterhead of the German university along with the signature of the host. You might be asked to fill in the necessary details. In that case, this template should help:

Dear <your name>,

Herewith I confirm that I accept you for an internship, from xxx to xxx in XX University, Germany, under the framework of DAAD-WISE funded research internship. There will be no financial support from the Institute.

The research project is on <project title> and I shall supervise you for the duration of the above mentioned dates.

Best regards

4. A no-objection certificate from your college. Format available on the DAAD WISE webpage. Again, fill in your details and mail it to your HoD asking for the signature. Explain about the internship and that it will be funded by DAAD, in case the HoD isn't aware of the program.

5. Letter of motivation. Explain your interests, what are your future goals, what will the project be about and how it would help you in your personal development and career. Keep it within 1 page with standard MS Word formatting. "My goal is to pursue higher studies in Germany" may fetch some brownie points 🙂.

6. DAAD WISE Application form. The format would be available on the portal. Just fill it, nothing special in this.

7. A reference. You won't require a proper LoR. There is a format for this which a Prof in your institute would need to fill (or you'll need to fill on behalf of the Prof). Make sure that you approach a faculty member in your Dept who knows you well enough. But first, make sure that you do enough in your second/start of third year so that a Prof knows you.

You would be required to post all of these documents before the deadline to their New Delhi office. Make sure you finish all this work by mid-October (latest by last week of Oct) so that there is ample time to post them to DAAD.

I guess this is it from my side. For some more information, you may refer to this PDF as well. Feel free to contact me if you have any other doubts.

All the best!