Kansas State University - Sanket Doshi

My search for a summer intern began in a pretty generic way: seeking professors working in the field of my interest, sending out probably a couple of hundred e-mails, and applying through some centralised programs. While I ended up working in something I didn’t originally want to, it was a good experience in retrospect.

I worked in Cosmology at Kansas State University, USA. The task consisted of deriving constraints on parameters of a dynamical Dark Energy model which my professor had theorized. It required some basic understanding in Cosmology like Perturbation Theory, BAO and a teenie bit of Scalar Field Theory. Through most of it, I worked on reproducing some of the previous research in the area and I worked with some new data in the last 30 days.

In spite of working in what was mainly data analysis, I was interested in doing HEP theory, and a month into my intern, I found out that my professor had completed his PhD in Semiclassical Quantisation of Gravity (yay!). Since my intern workload was pretty chill, I asked my professor for his thesis and started reading some of the basics. Even though I couldn’t do much of theory, I learned a decent bit.

So let’s talk about some of the logistics before I share some of the fun experiences. Interns in the US, to my understanding, require J1 visas. There are mainly three forms that one needs to fill for the visa: DS 2019, DS 160 (online form) and T/IPP. In addition to this foreign interns are required to purchase some minimum insurance cover, the details of which are usually mentioned in the documents you receive from the host university. The visa process for US interns is pretty swift and one can get the visa probably within 5 days of successful application.

The part of Kansas I visited, is a college town and hence pretty quiet during the summers. The plus point being, apartments are pretty cheap and I managed to restrict all the living cost to about a 1000 Dollars. While there are not many places to visit nearby, people’s houses are pretty big and you can have a lot of fun once you start making friends.

I’d like to mention some useful points that I learned through the application process and my internship:

1. Learn how to cook.
2. Do not over think if you manage to get a good professor without funding. I missed a couple of very good opportunities because of this.
3. Remember to reply to and follow up with all the professors.
4. Look for centralised internship/research programs. I’d emphasize this because there are a lot of good programs that go unnoticed, both in Europe and US.
5. Do not underestimate Theoretical Physicists in India.
6. Seriously, learn how to cook.

Now, a bit about good experiences. Kansas has a lot of Indians and people are very friendly, in general. As the intern work was chill, I got to spend some time studying random interesting things, trying different food, meeting new people, play a cricket tournament, running and meditating. I made a good friend who shared the same fascination for Physics. We learned how to cook, climb rocks and play a Piano which I confess, didn’t turn out that great.

All in all, it was a great experience for me personally. It helped me try and realise a whole lot of different things that I probably wouldn’t have otherwise. Cheers :)