Each year, Microsoft Research Asia welcomes a new group of Korean interns, who spend three months or more conducting exciting research. Like all Microsoft Research interns, these talented young scientists derive several benefits from their internships, not the least of which is the mentorship of top Microsoft researchers in their field of interest, and exposure to the most advanced technology and best databases. Moreover, they get real-word experience as they collaborate with leading researchers on cutting-edge projects and innovative ventures. As the brief stories that follow reveal, internship is an exciting, mind-opening experience that reveals new opportunities for the interns.
The challenges and achievements of internships
Taesung Lee, a PhD student at Pohang University of Science and Technology, has had three internships at Microsoft Research Asia, which have totaled more than a year and a half and have involved research in web-scale taxonomy cleansing and de-noising, and the attributes of knowledge bases.
For Taesung, these internships have been invaluable experiences in the ups and downs of the research process. “I tried many ways to attack these challenges and explored positive and negative evidence,” Taesung recalls. “I learned that communication in research is extremely important; without it, the validity and feasibility of your project can be affected by your own prejudices.”
While analyzing and solving problems, he said that he was very grateful for his collaborative partners’ help. When he encountered experimental failures, his mentors and colleagues gave him useful suggestions and support. All of which has helped him succeed, having two papers accepted for major conferences: VLDB 2011 and ICDE 2012.
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Taesung is especially appreciative of his Microsoft Research Asia mentor, Zhongyuan Wang. “Zhongyuan is not only my academic mentor but also my friend, always inspiring, giving me the courage and positive feedback to explore further. When we have different views on an issue, he offers many constructive suggestions. As I tread the road of research, Zhongyuan has given me a lot of positive energy.”
Research with real-world impact
“When people think of industry research labs in computer science, Microsoft Research is one of the first to come to mind. So when I first applied for an internship in 2008 while pursuing my master’s degree, Microsoft Research Asia was one of my top choices,” says Ji-Yong Shin, currently a PhD student at Cornell University.
Like Taesung, Ji-Yong has served more than one Microsoft Research internship: in Beijing in 2008, Redmond in 2009, and Silicon Valley in 2011. Although it has been six years since I first interviewed Ji Yong for a Microsoft internship, he still remembers me asking him what kind of impact he thought he could make at Microsoft Research Asia.
“At that time, I was working on NAND flash memories, and I knew there were very few researchers at Microsoft Research Asia who were working in this area. So I said I could collaborate with the researchers and help them solve flash-related research questions,” Ji-Yong recalls. However, he learned the true meaning of “impact” after he actually started his internship.
“I started working at the Platforms and Devices Center, which is currently part of the hardware computing group in Microsoft Research Asia, and I was surprised that the research topics my group were working on were not only academically meaningful but also produced results that other product or research groups wanted to use immediately. Before my internship, I was happy just writing papers in the lab and didn’t think much about how my research would affect people in the real world. Actually seeing others use my research results at Microsoft made me realize the real joy of research and made me think deeply about how to choose investigative topics that can make a difference in the world.”
Learning on the rebound
University of Massachusetts Amherst PhD student Youngho Kim first interned at Microsoft Research Asia in 2007. In 2012, he obtained a second internship offer from Microsoft Research. When talking about his internship experiences at Microsoft Research Asia, Youngho describes it as “learning from rebound.”
“I was highly confident and proud of myself at first,” admits Youngho. “I was eager to prove my brilliance by successfully completing my project on semantic-level paraphrasing generation. However, halfway through the project, I realized that the data I was using, which consisted of web texts, had more noise than I could possibly filter out. I struggled to solve the problems by myself, but the data variation was too large to be generalized. Running out of time with no tangible results, I was devastated. Finally, I went to my mentor and confided my problem to him.”
After much discussion, they agreed that Youngho should drop his own project and join his mentor’s for the remainder of his internship. “I was disappointed in myself. I had let my pride get the better of me. This experience forced me to take an honest look at my weaknesses and gave me a chance to grow further as a researcher.”
Back at school, Youngho felt like a new man, as he enthusiastically initiated novel research, employing the new attitude he had acquired at Microsoft Research Asia.
Youngho’s current internship project is going very well. “I understand that I have a long way to go before I’m a leading researcher in my area, but I’m a passionate scientist who’s always eager to learn. My Microsoft internship experiences will support me as I move ahead, and I appreciate the great opportunities they have given me.”
The guidance of a top researcher
When Hyunson Seo received email from Frank Soong from the Speech Group at Microsoft Research Asia, suggesting they talk about her internship application, she was thrilled. A PhD student in electrical engineering at Yonsei University, Hyunson still remembers her first phone call with Soong—who is a top researcher in Hyunson’s field—and her excitement at boarding a flight to Beijing for her internship in September 2011.
“Though Microsoft Research interns enjoy many benefits and privileges, the most precious for me was the one-to-one mentoring system. I learned a lot from Frank. He always encouraged me and provided the big picture perspective that I might have missed. Whenever I encountered a problem, he was there to help me work through it. “
“The project I took part in was about factoring speaker and environmental variability in speech recognition systems. I mastered many algorithms during the process and I learned how to achieve results in a short period.”
“Knock on the door of Microsoft Research, and you will see the world,” Hyunson concludes.
Long-term collaboration with Microsoft Research Asia
As a recipient of a Microsoft Research Asia Fellowship, Yohan Chon was offered a four-month internship at Microsoft Research Asia, where he worked under Nic Lane and Feng Zhao in the Mobile and Sensing Systems (MASS) research group. That experience was the beginning of a long-term, ongoing collaboration with Microsoft Research.
“I have had outstanding research experiences at Microsoft Research Asia, thanks to three great factors: my mentor, my team, and the environment. It’s really been an honor to get mentoring from pioneer researchers. They’ve inspired, guided, and encouraged me, making me a better researcher,” says Yohan. “It is also important to collaborate with passionate interns from other countries. Their desire and attitude have motivated me to work even harder.”
Yohan continues to collaborate with researchers on the MASS team. “The internship at Microsoft Research Asia opened new opportunities for me. It has allowed me not only to improve my research ability but also to meet a great research team. I’m still working with researches in Microsoft Research Asia, and we’ve made great contributions for mobile sensing research communities.”
Yohan’s final words capture the essence of the Microsoft Research intern experience: “It seemed a small opportunity at the beginning, but it significantly changed my research life.”
—Miran Lee, Principal Research Program Manager, Microsoft Research Asia
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