Asian varsities shop for IIT-B interns, Europe goes slow

MUMBAI: IIT-Bombay is increasingly becoming a destination for Asian countries, especially their universities, to shop for interns. While US universities still pick up the highest number oft IIT-B students for internships, offers from Japan, Singapore and South Korea have seen a significant rise in the recent years. On the contrary, data from the past three years show that offers from the UK, Germany, France and Canada, though still significant, have been on the decline.
In 2017-18, the US offered 49 students, the most that year, opportunities to complete their two-month-long internships. During the same period, Japan's universities and companies, that didn't evince much interest earlier, made 23 offers. Data shows that firms and universities in South Korea, which never was a destination for internships in the past five years, made 12 offers in the same period.


Asian countries are aggressively visiting campuses in India to hire students, said Tom Mathew, professor-in-charge of placements at IIT-Bombay. "Countries such as Japan are involved in many activities in our country; some have strong manufacturing units. There are agencies which assist firms and universities to pick Indian students. Their senior officials personally visit the campus and give feedback to students," said the professor.

On the other hand, firms and universities from European countries do not come to the campus, added the professor. "They are established names, so students have to approach them," he said.


"Earlier, there were compulsory academic credits associated with internships, it is not the case now. Students used to work on six-month-long research projects, which are now cut short to about two months - mostly during vacations. The European countries are working around their own requirements and are taking time to adapt to these changes, whereas the requirement at universities and companies in Asian countries is more now,” the student said. Most IIT-Bombay students are picked up by best universities abroad for internships, he added.

However, international companies are not offering as many internships as universities as they prefer to hire from local branches. Kaustubha Mohanty, former chairman of the All-India Placement Committee of IITs, said that funding at some of the universities abroad, especially in the United States, Canada and some other European countries seems to have taken a hit.