Shashank Kotyan National Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan

I did my internship at National Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan (ROC ) presently working on finding and analysing motifs in time series data at Advanced Database Systems Lab (ADSL) headed by Prof. WenChih Peng, Director, Institute of Multimedia Engineering, Department of Computer Science.

I did my internship at National Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan (ROC ) presently working on finding and analysing motifs in time series data at Advanced Database Systems Lab (ADSL) headed by Prof. WenChih Peng, Director, Institute of Multimedia Engineering, Department of Computer Science.

My voyage started around October, I don't particularly remember how but I started searching for professors across the world researching in data science (at this time I searched only 5). I sent mails to them that I am willing to work under them in the coming summer, and when they didn't reply I lost my enthusiasm and stalled this till the end of winter vacation (A grave mistake). During the winter vacation, my mother was over excited to see me work overseas and her enthusiasm got me and I again started mailing professors, most of them didn‟t reply, some replied that I was late for the application, some replied positively that I can come to their labs and work but as I was late I couldn't get any financial help from them.

Amongst these positive replies, one was of Prof. Wen-Chih Peng, people who are close to me would know how much I obsess over the South Asian countries and definitely I was head over heels when I got his reply.

Getting to Prof. Peng is another spin-off to the story, I mailed a professor at NCTU, but the professor I mailed (Dr. Yih-Lang Li) who was kind enough to introduce me to his good friend (Prof. Wen-Chih Peng) and then Prof. Peng was having some doubts about me coming to Taiwan but I persistently kept mailing about my determination to come to which he agreed.

This is how I got an offer of unpaid internship at NCTU (Unpaid Internship is definitely less good than paid but wait till the end... Unpaid Internship aren't so bad).

After accepting, Prof. Peng introduced me to Office of International Affairs who handle the formalities of International Exchange Student. Through them, I got to know various documents I have to prepare for a visa for 2 months as a student not a tourist. I received from them an official acceptance letter from the university, a letter of approval from their ministry of education and then I proceeded with the Visa and air tickets.

Taiwan has Taiwanese welcoming, a different touch all people are the kind and honest together. warmest, of all nationalities‟ people I have ever met ( I have met people from a lot of nationalities, not all but all major whether Asian, European, American, African... not quite African but others yes ). The people at university speak good English not fluent still you can expect most of them to know and speak and there's always a European Guy in the lab doing his master's or doctorate.

Food tips, keep your choices aside, if you go to a place that's a not a travel checklist of an Indian, you will have serious problem finding Indian Cuisine. But as Indians are all over the world you can find Indian Cuisine which is rare, my suggestion in this case will be try to explore near you to get a food that's not Indian but surely fits your taste buds.

Taiwanese people are big foodies and nutritionist as they always have something to drink like tea, juice, beer. Yeah, people drink here but you won't find anyone drunk because they know their limit unlike The Indians whom I found vomiting in the streets while roaming late night.

The reason for me to tell you this is survival comes first even before your work, if you can't survive, you can't work. About my work experience, I'll share the general idea but if anyone likes me to go to the specifics, the options to contact me is always open (If you want a face to face conversation make sure you are free for an hour or two. I have a lot to share). About the work experience, thankfully, I have experiences of NCTU and of IITs (I have met and befriended a lot of friends from Kharagpur and some from Delhi).

About NCTU, well the university has two campuses Bo-Ai and Kuangfu and in between lies another university NTHU (All the people I have met and experienced, said that NTHU has the best library in Taiwan, it feels it's not a library but a five star hotel itself) You just will want to live there, they have everything but books. NCTU's library on the other hand is heaven for academicians here, 7 floors of books, articles, publications, journals etc. and a floor of audio-audio-video where you can find anything except study videos, but name any Hollywood movie, anime, tv series, they have it all. The lectures, well the lectures I visited were Chinese and I mainly focused on slides, but my lab mates said that they have English courses and I could've visited one if I came a bit early.

The culture of study is a lot different here. With that, the people who were kind and patient enough to read all through this. A tip for going overseas, if you require stipend and funding try between SeptemberNovember, if you require unpaid try between December & February