Overview

Mitacs Globalink Research Internship is a competitive initiative for international undergraduates from May to October of each year, where top-ranked applicants participate in a 12-week research internship under the supervision of Canadian university faculty members in a variety of academic disciplines, from science, engineering, and mathematics to the humanities and social sciences.

In this article, I'll be writing about the process of filling out the application form along with my experience.

Introduction

I'm a final year student pursuing Electrical and Electronics Engineering at DSCE, Bangalore. I'm a Blockchain developer who is passionate about making Dapps.

I got selected for Mitacs GRI'22 when I was in 3rd year. The project was based on Smart Contracts for Supply Chain Management and I was working under Prof. ShiKui Wu.

What's the most exciting part of Mitacs GRI?

Mitacs GRI funds your entire trip to Canada for your project duration.
I was being called at Lakehead University – Thunder Bay. Here's the selection mail:

Kirti Lodha

@kirti_lodha_

*khushi ke aansu can't stop*

Finally my first big achievement!
@MitacsCanada

05:53 AM - 12 Dec 2021

Note: The application deadline is Thursday, September 22, 2022, at 1 p.m. Pacific Time (PT).

Process

Register to the Official site

After registration, you'll see a welcome page like this:

Selecting the projects

• Move to the Projects Tab and you'll see the below page:

• Choose your domain - There are 3111 projects and it involves various domains like Machine Learning, Blockchain, Android development and many more. You've to finalize the projects that lie in your interests.
• Filtering the projects - Most of the time you won't understand the description of the projects. But that's where you can stand out from others. Choose projects which seem doable yet a little difficult. In this case, you increase your chance of getting selected.

• You have to select minimum 3 and maximum 7 projects. In my case, I chose all 7 projects under the Blockchain domain.

• Ranking - You've to rank your projects from 1 to 7, 1 being the highest and you'll be selected according to it.
  Suppose the seats are full for the 1st project, then you might get selected for the 2nd project and so on.

Application

• Fill in your personal information which includes Name, Gender, Citizenship, etc.
• Fill in your educational details.
• Background and Research Interests - If you've any experience in the research field, it will act as a bonus point. Speak about your skills, and projects even though you haven't worked in a research field. Talk about your achievements.

I mentioned about two review papers that I wrote in my 2nd year and I wrote about Hackathons and my projects.

Academic Reference

There are two ways to submit a LOR, either you submit it or the professor uploads it. In case, you want your professor to upload it, you've to give his/her name and email id. Mitacs will send them an email to upload the LOR. You've to ensure that your professor completes the submission before the deadline. The professor could be anyone from your university to your mentor in an internship who is willing to write for you. Make sure they are recognized and the position matters.

In my case, the LOR was written by an Associate Professor from my university. I'll recommend you to request your professor to submit the LOR instead of you.

Documents

You've to submit your Resume along with one mandatory transcript.

I submitted my resume and my latest semester marks card. I also submitted a few certificates that hold great value.

Note: Please don't submit participation certificates.

What happened next?

• My application status got changed to Candidate under consideration on 10th Nov 2021.

• I got three interview calls from the top 3 projects I selected, in November.

• Next, the professor asked me to write a proposal explaining my approach to the selected project due to a high number of applicants.

• I was given a week to submit the proposal.

Note: You can get selected without interviews also. It depends on the project and the mentor.

• The matching platform was closed by 27th Nov 2021. At this time, you'll be judged based on your application, and interviews. The exact lines were: > The matching platform is now closed. Mitacs is currently reviewing professor feedback and candidate project rankings as a regular part of our matching process. Candidates cannot re-rank project selections in the Globalink Student platform at this time.

If you get selected, you'll get a mail in December. I got mine on 10th Dec 2021.

Note: I did my internship virtually as my university didn't allow me to travel to Canada for 3 months. In case, you get selected and you have a proper reason to not attend the internship in-person, please feel free to reach out to Mitacs. They're very helpful.

If you've any doubts or want to get your application reviewed, feel free to reach out to me through:

LinkedIn - kirtilodha
Twitter - Kirti_Lodha_

Thank you for reading the article. :)