Internships provide a valuable opportunity for hands-on experience outside their familiar academic environment, and so much more. Here’s what our PhD students have to say about their work in the field …
Genentech
Developing a Coding Assistant Chatbot for Efficient Clinical Trial Analysis
I heard about Genentech from a former BU PhD student who also did an internship with them, and highly recommended the company to me. […]
Recently, my advisor Yannis Paschalidis and our lab are training a pandemic Large Language Model, and I’m using the experience I gained on my internship to help my labmates on the project.”
-Boran Hao (PhD Candidate)
Meta
Improving the Representation Quality of Multimodal Models
I appreciated the opportunity to work on challenging projects with real-world impact. As an intern, I had the chance to contribute to a project in a critical area in the field of AI. This experience not only helped me develop new skills, but also gave me a sense of purpose and fulfillment.”
-Li Sun (PhD’24)
Qualcomm
RTL-Area Optimization for Digital IC Design
This research project required skills and experience in Verilog design and efficient use of hardware resources directly linked to my PhD research. Moreover, working in a company that excels in digital and analog circuit design gave me an opportunity to get familiar with cutting-edge research methodology.”
-Arslan Riaz (PhD’24)
Nokia Labs
Product Creation, from Design to Final Approval
One thing that I liked the most and appreciated was that I was immediately assigned to an actual company project. This allowed me to experience working at the company at its fullest extent. The internship also significantly improved my communication skills. My experience at Nokia will complement my PhD journey and better prepare me for making post-graduation plans and decisions.”
-Kenaish AlQubaisi (PhD’23)
Georgia Tech Research Institute
Build strong connections and don’t be afraid to ask. Both internships I’ve conducted over my graduate career were enabled by personal connections. One was a guest speaker at BU who I approached after their talk and the other is my mentor from a professional organization. In my experience, professionals you meet in all walks of STEM are more than eager to help a student succeed. As a Ph.D. student, you are more than capable to translate your skills and succeed in a new environment. The difficult part is breaking through the noise to get noticed. Having someone who can vouch for you goes a long way towards enabling your success.”
–advice from Joseph Greene (PhD’24)
A few other companies our PhD students have recently interned for:
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 Apple |
 |
 |
 Intel |
 Raytheon BBN |
 Samsung |
 TikTok |