“We received 110 internship applications for this summer, and after having finished the sorting, interviewing and selection process, we were left with 21 excellent candidates. They will be working closely with many of our researcher” says Elin Backe Christophersen, advisor at Simula.
Theodor Astrup Wiik (21) is one of the selected students just starting his internship. It’s his first relevant job, and he is very excited to get started and expand his knowledge.“There are many things I hope to learn from this experience, but I especially look forward to learning more about how to use computer technology in real life projects”, he says.
21 interns will be joining Simula this summer and work on different research projects.Most of the interns are students from Norway, however, a few have been recruited from countries like Spain, Germany, USA, Great Britain and Yemen.“The internship program is a great recruiting arena for us, we get to know talented and skilled students, who might be potential PhD-candidates here at a later time. Also, by tutoring interns, our researchers gain useful management experience. Moreover, we like to think that by offering summer jobs, we help a handful students develop and get relevant experience”, explains Backe Christophersen.
Applied by chance
Theodor is working on his Masters in computer technology at NTNU. He says it was pure luck that he ended up applying for the internship.“Yes, I applied two minutes before the application deadline.You see, that same night, at eleven o´clock, a friend from NTNU told me he had applied for an internship at Simula. I thought it sounded cool, and I decided to go do the same. So I wrote an application and sent it in, but I feared my hasty application wouldn´t look serious enough.”It did, and Theodor was selected among the applicants. He doesn´t exactly know the details of what he will be working on this summer, but he knows it has to do with multimedia systems and soccer.
Pål Halvorsen, a researcher at Simula and one of Theodor´s supervisors, explains that they hope to get Theodor to find, collect and analyze data in multimedia files.“We want him to identify a data collection, for example a specific tackle in soccer, and then check whether some of our systems, or algorithms, will be able to recognize the same tackle in films or pictures.”Halvorsen underlines that the main goal is that Theodore will help them find data and results they can continue building on.“So by outsourcing some tasks to him, we will be able to get some of the work we want to do, but don´t have time to do ourselves, done. And in return we hope that he will develop a greater knowledge about - and interest for - computer technology”.
Eager to learn
Yngve Mardal Moe (25) studies computational biology at NMBU, but he is spending his summer vacation at Simula, working as an intern.“I am currently writing on my Master´s thesis, but I am taking a six week long break to be here. I am going to work with one of Simula´s researchers, who have created a quick code to simulate the heart. I am told I will be testing the code and trying to figure out methods to improve it”, he discloses.Yngve expects the internship will teach him about high performance computing, and how to make several computers communicate when calculating on the same problem.
“I want to pursue a PhD-degree in scientific computing, so this internship fits very well into my future plans. I also believe that the internship will be relevant and beneficial to me when I eventually apply for jobs.”
Excited to be part of research organization
Julie Johannes Uv (22) doesn´t know exactly what type of tasks her summer internship will bring, so far she only knows that they will revolve around a research project on electro cardiac physiology.“I can´t wait to learn more about how researchers work. I have just finished the fourth year of a Master´s degree in industrial mathematics at NTNU, and I need to think about what to do when I have completed that. So I am hoping this internship will help me determine whether I should continue on a PhD-degree”, she says.Håkon Moelven (24) is hoping the internship at Simula will contribute to him learning more about the Finite-Element Method, often used in mechanical engineering. This, he says, will be specifically useful, since he studies engineering and ICT at NTNU.“I am so excited to get started, it is my first relevant job, and I am really anxious to put the knowledge I have learnt at school, into practice.”
FACTS:
- Summer interns 2018
- 21 summer interns will work on different research projects. 10 of them are female, 11 are male.
- The summer job positions will last 4-6 weeks. The first intern started on May 22nd, the last starts July 30th. Most start within the two last weeks of June.