Sample cover letter for Internship position at Caltech

Research Proposal

The opportunity to be a part of a research group in this reputed California University of Technology excites me and appeals to me because of my inquisitiveness in the field of Machine Learning and Data Mining in addition to my strong desire to apply the knowledge I’ve gained in this field to real world problems. I am Aniruddha Tapas, an undergraduate student at Shri Ramdeobaba College of Engineering and Management, Nagpur, India pursuing BE in Computer Science and Engineering and have a limited experience in the field of Machine Learning, Computer Vision, Natural Language Processing and Android Development. I propose that my work as an intern with Caltech University of Technology at SURF, 2016 is appropriate within my field of study and therefore should be eligible for admission in the research program. To attain a career as a Data Scientist, I am especially interested in getting involved with the research project of Social Media Mining. I believe that with my interests in Data Mining, I will be able to ultimately achieve a successful career in this field.

From this internship I plan to learn about and gain research experience in advanced Machine Learning and Data Mining techniques. I am the founder of the website www.appliedprogramming.net which focuses on providing hands-on knowledge to beginners and advanced programmers alike, in implementing Machine Learning algorithms, Computer Vision and Natural Language Processing techniques and Artificial Intelligence Problems. I identified a need of making my peers and other students who want to get in this fascinating field, to grasp the basic concepts as well as implement them for a detailed understanding. I have a few projects related to this field which are explained in detail on the website and are also included in the my Curriculum

Vitae. 95% of these projects are a result of my individual research starting right from understanding the basics myself to diving deep in the implementation portion. A few of my projects include Twitter Mining, Facebook Mining, Github Mining, Election-Voting Analysis, Stock-Market

Analysing, Market Segmentation, Automated Spam Classifier, Face and Eye Detection, Barcode-Scanner, Document Retrieval, Background Reduction etc. By combining my theoretical knowledge about Data Mining with my past experiences of undertaking these projects, I propose I am capable of handling the work-load that comes with the research internship.

Working with the experts in the field will give me practical experience in applying and developing Machine Learning algorithms for data retrieval and analysis. If given a chance, I would assist in developing cutting edge softwares and programs that would perform accurate data acquisition and analysis. My past projects would certainly come in handy while undertaking new ones at the program. The projects like Twitter, Facebook, Github Mining or the likes of Election Analysis and Market Segmentation that were part of my individual research will help us in getting a head-start in developing modern and even more effective data-mining programs.

By incorporating knowledge attained from Machine Learning through different MOOCs like Coursera and Edx, and applying data analysis techniques in different projects, I plan to learn many insights into high level machine learning and data mining procedures.

The details of these projects can be found at my website www.appliedprogramming.net . The main projects that I think would help us in the proposed project of Social Media Mining are posted on my website. The links to these projects are: http://nbviewer.jupyter.org/github/Aniruddha-Tapas/Machine-Learning/tree/master/Social-Media-Mining/ and http://nbviewer.jupyter.org/github/Aniruddha-Tapas/Machine-Learning/blob/master/Project%20-%20Election%20Analysis.ipynb

The research experience and the knowledge I gain through this expedition would be presented by me at the end of the research program in the form of a paper where I will elaborate the project my mentor and I undertook. I will keep a daily log of all my activities at work, and these will be summarized at regular intervals in a meeting with my mentor. During the meeting, we will discuss any problems that I am having, and what can be done to improve my performance. A mandatory meeting will take place at the midterm to discuss my progress and the topic for my final

report, which will be between 10 and 15 pages in length. In addition to this final report, I will also complete the paper summarizing all my research activities and learning situations.

My mentor for this internship is Professor Michael Alvarez and he will watch my progress throughout my internship through frequent meetings. At the end of the research program I will have a better understanding about