Kaushik Nagaraj at University of Michigan

 Abstract

This article describes the internship experience of the author, Kaushik Nagaraj, at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. The author presents this article in a format similar to the one written by Antani describing his experience at Texas A & M. One important extension of the write-up by Antani in this article is the inclusion of the abstract and keywords, without which a journal article is just incomplete.

Keywords

Internship, Michigan, Manuscript

1. Introduction

The summer of 2017 got me interning at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, under Prof. H. Scott Fogler, a greatly renowned person in the field of Chemical Engineering, and an author of 12 books till date. ChEA thought that it might be a good idea for me to recount my internship experience.¹ As mine was a university internship and also because it sounds cool, I have presented this write-up as a manuscript submitted to a journal, similar to Antani.²

2. Materials and Methods

The selection process was pretty straight-forward. Prof. Fogler has been accepting interns from India for quite a few years now, and he prefers the toppers of the batch. Selection is assured for the student who has the highest GPA among those who have applied.³ Prof. Fogler usually takes 2-3 interns every year, but he could take only one this time.

3. Results and Discussion

               3.1 Work

An internship under Prof. Fogler can be a very enriching experience, provided one makes use of it in the right way. In my case, he made it a point to make me attend each and every meeting with the industrial affiliates, and put me in touch with a few other top professors and researchers at the university. Coming to my work, it was two-fold. The first was to develop a pharmacokinetic model for the human body, fit kinetic parameters for the model developed, and simulate the blockage of receptor sites in the body due to snake envenomation. The second was to proofread the material in the upcoming edition of Prof. Fogler’s book, and to develop a MATLAB code and GUI for a chemical kinetics simulation problem. I was really lucky to have a lot of interaction with Prof. Fogler on anything and everything, ranging from discussions on grad school to the Ann Arbor summer festival. He was also so kind as to agree to take a selfie with me (Figure 1).

Figure 1: Selfie with Prof. Fogler :D

               3.2 The University and Ann Arbor

Ann Arbor is a pleasant university town, which is about 30 minutes from the Detroit airport. The people here are really friendly, and most importantly do not judge you for what you are. The university campus is pretty awesome, and exploring is a lot of fun (Figure 2).  

Figure 2: Customary pic with “The Cube” in the background

Popular weekend getaways in and around Ann Arbor include skydiving, hiking, and canoeing or kayaking across the Huron river. There was also the Ann Arbor summer festival going on while I was here. My favorite part was the movie screening every evening.

               3.3 Food

Ann Arbor is a great place if you are a foodie, with a variety of cuisines to try out. I particularly enjoyed the Mexican food. Being a vegetarian, the options for me were a bit limited, but almost every restaurant had a few vegetarian dishes which were more than palatable. Things started to become repetitive over the course of time, however. I used to mostly eat out during the weekends and for lunch, and resorted to cooking (read Maggi) for breakfast and dinner. There is a grocery store and an Indian market nearby which proved to be very convenient. My biggest cooking adventure, as I like to call it, was when I tried the Rava Dosa. It did come out pretty well (Figure 3).

Figure 3: Well, that was tasty!

               3.4 Travel

One of the best parts of a university internship is the traveling you get to do during weekends. The university is located away from most tourist destinations, but that did not stop me from having the time of my life. I ended up visiting Chicago, Seattle, New York, Washington DC (Figure 4) and San Francisco. I was lucky to have relatives in quite a few of these places showing me around the city. I missed out on Canada, which was a 4 hours drive from my place, despite procuring a visa. :/

Figure 4: The US Capitol

4. Conclusion

Being enthusiastic about grad school in the US, the best takeaway for me from this internship opportunity is the inputs that I got from my interaction with renowned professors and with graduate students regarding their work. Getting to know someone as esteemed as Prof. Fogler was surely a dream come true. An internship in a university abroad is a good way to get yourself acquainted with the laws and culture in that country. You also get to interact with people from around the world, which surely enhances your personality. It is a great experience to get an idea of what is in store for the next five years, if you are seriously considering grad school.

References

1. Self-proclaimed, but true, of course.
2. Antani, J. Texas A & M University: Jyot Antani. InsIght Summer Blog (2015)
3. Kadulkar, S. Sanket Michigan University. ChEA Blog (2016)