This article is current as of November 2020 and will be updated regularly with new information. If you have any questions, head over to the official Freshers’ Group 2020 on Facebook to have them answered!

MIT Manipal provides its students with international exposure in ways that most engineering institutes in India cannot. The college does this by offering opportunities to various types of internship programs around the world. Besides being an immense learning experience, such exposure also provides an edge to a student’s CV. Universities across the globe providing Masters degree prefer applicants with a decent amount of international training, and this is where MIT, with its global networks, has the edge. Working and learning with people of other nationalities and cultures can make one see the world from their standpoint, honing the important skill of being able to shift perspectives.

There are ample opportunities to get international exposure at MIT. Given below are some of the programs.

Foreign Internships and Volunteering Exchanges

Manipal University has branches of two student-run organisations, namely AIESEC and IAESTE, which provide foreign internship opportunities to students. Several students have been lucky enough to receive scholarships at universities to pursue higher studies or job opportunities in the companies where they worked during their internship.

• IAESTE is an independent, fully supported student-run organisation that provides opportunities for students to enhance their careers by pursuing technical internships abroad. With more than 80 member countries, it is one of the largest organisations of its kind in the world. Students interested in participating in an exchange can register during their membership drive which is conducted every semester. Along with holding its trademark event, conventions and membership drives for outgoing participants, the Manipal Local Committee of IAESTE also hosts foreign interns and events such as the International Cuisine Night and International Evening. Due to the ongoing pandemic, students are eligible only for online exchanges. 
• AIESEC is the world’s biggest non-profit student-run organisation. AIESEC provides non-technical (volunteering) as well as technical internships abroad through their Global Volunteer and Global Talent programs, respectively. Students interested in participating in exchange can contact the Local Committee at MAHE or register on their website. AIESEC also works on the 17 Sustainable Development Goals initiative of the United Nations as one of its causes. With branches spread over 127 countries, they organise local and national conferences for their members to develop leadership abilities in foreign exchange participants. The Local Committee also holds a variety of events throughout the year—Global Village, World Café and World’s Largest Lesson, to name a few. All exchanges are on hold due to the ongoing pandemic. AIESEC is not considering to send any students abroad until the summer of 2021.

An AIESEC Global Volunteer exchange which accomplished the United Nation’s 4th Global Goal, Quality Education

Semester Exchange Programs

This program allows students to complete one or two semesters of their collegiate career abroad, owing to MOUs and tie-ups with foreign institutes. These programs are of two types, the Semester Abroad Program and the Student Exchange Program.

• In the Semester Abroad Program, students can choose to do a semester from a variety of colleges abroad. BTech students are eligible for this in their 5th, 6th, and 7th semester. Students who wish to avail this program must maintain a CGPA above 7 without any backlogs. While the GPA of that semester is not considered in the calculation of CGPA at the end of the B-Tech course at MIT, the University the undergrads choose to study the semester at provides a GPA of its own for that duration. However, the credits obtained at the foreign university may count towards total credit requirements for receiving the degree. 
• Through the Student Exchange Program, students are both sent and received by the college. Credits that are completed in the duration of the program are transferred. Students enrolling in this program often consider it a trial run for a masters degree abroad. One of MIT’s partner universities in France, EPITECH, is well sought after by students owing to their unique system of Problem Based Learning. Rather than the traditional method of teaching, the students are made to sit in offices and collaborate with each other and work together. It focuses on a student’s reflection and reasoning to devise their own learning methods, and this practice is starting to be adopted in leading educational bodies around the world.
  
  
  

  An office at EPITECH

Some of the partner universities are Hochschule Bremen—University for Applied Science in Germany, the Chemnitz University of Technology in Germany, and the Queensland University of Technology in Australia.

The 3+2 Program

A very recent collaboration in this program is a dual-degree offered at the end of the course, meaning applicants get an M-Tech degree instead of a B-Tech. The course is of five years, with three years in MIT and two years abroad. Only the Efrei University in France is currently a part of the program, but expansions are underway with many colleges around the world. A huge benefit of this program is that it significantly increases a student’s chances of getting placed in Europe after the completion of the course.

University of Antwerp, Belgium provided a full scholarship to two students of MIT, Manipal

Other than these, there are a number of different scholarships offered by various universities around the world for doing projects in their college, with all expenses, including the travel costs being covered.

Featured Image Credits: Aishwarya Sunderrajan