Re: Internship Cover Letter Details

Shaves — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 15:15:45 GMT

Hi, some quick tips I would write "and have Mr. *** as my mentor" instead of "and have as my mentor Mr. *** ". It still sounds a bit 'odd', as you already said. I think you were right in replacing what you said at your 5th bullet. Your letter looks good, only the word order looks a bit mixed up sometimes (at least I think so, I'm NOT an English teacher, a Dutch student in fact :-P ) You should only include the relevant courses, but I think you already have done that. That's it for now, I hope I could help you at least a bit

Internship Cover Letter Details

InViVe — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 15:32:22 GMT

Any help "fixing" the following cover letter, would be greatly appreciated. I plan to send it to a research institute in the US which has a few internship positions available for students worldwide. In their own words, the cover letter should include a statement of my specific research interests, contact details and relevant coursework and grades received. Having discussed it briefly with some of my professors i ended up with this:

"My contact details"

"Contact details of the institute's member responsible for the internship"

Date

Dear Dr. ***,

I am writing in response to your posting for the *** Internship Program. I am currently a final year Masterâs student in *** at the University of ***, and I would like to be considered for the internship position on the *** project. I am particularly interested in working on expanding the simulation capability currently available within *** whose âevolutionâ I have followed in the literature.

My academic background includes the following relevant graduate courses:

Computer Programming, a course referring to C++ programming â both object oriented and structured programming - in which I received a grade of 9 (on a scale from 0 to 10).
Advanced Software Engineering, a course on design patterns, the Single responsibility principle and refactorings (ongoing).
Advanced Artificial Intelligence, during which I was taught Prolog, Constraint Programming, Constraint Logic Programming (using the ECLiPSe platform), planning with constraints (including a project concerning mixed initiative temporal planning with constraints), and reasoning under uncertainty (MDPs, chapters 13 to 17 of the book "Artificial Intelligence, A modern approach" by Stuart Russell and Peter Norvig). I received a grade of 9.
Neural Networks and Evolutionary Algorithms, dealing with several neural network architectures as well as other machine learning approaches, including the first five chapters of the book "Pattern Recognition and Machine Learning" by Christopher M. Bishop (ongoing).

Other relevant courses from my undergraduate studies (also in ***) include:

Artificial intelligence, which covered the first twelve chapters of the AIMA textbook (including partial order planning). I received a grade of 10.
Object oriented programming, a course on Java programming and UML. I received a grade of 9.

This semester I will begin working on my Masterâs Thesis, the topic of which is "***. It involves simulating "...". In the future, I plan to pursue a Ph.D. in ***, possibly by extending my research in my diploma thesis.

It is my belief that I could contribute effectively as a member of your program, which in turn would allow me to continue to pursue my research interests and future academic career. I consider this internship an ideal opportunity to obtain hands-on experience. Also, it would greatly benefit me to collaborate with fellow interns and have as my mentor Mr. ***.

I enclose a recent curriculum vitae for your attention and I look forward to hearing from you.

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

"My name & surname"

My doubts are as to:

Whether there are any grammar or syntactical errors
Should the cover letter have information on where i found their program advertisement? For example "I am writing in response to your posting for the *** Internship Program, of which I learned through an email from the *** googlegroup."?
The part "I am particularly interested in working on expanding the simulation capability currently available within *** whose âevolutionâ I have followed in the literature." in the first paragraph originally was "I would wish to be considered for the intership position on the *** project, and if possible for the part of ***, of which I read and was particularly interested in, in the paper â***â which was presented in the *** Workshop on ***." Which version do you think is better?
If i should include the sentence 'Also, it would greatly benefit me to collaborate with fellow interns and have as my mentor Mr. ***." or maybe it sounds "fake" (although it is in fact true!)
In the original version of this cover letter, the last paragraph was
"Also, it would greatly benefit me to have as my mentor Mr. ***, whose career in the *** and *** I think of very highly, and collaborate with fellow interns, as until this time, I havenât had the opportunity to work in a multi-member research group. Finally, travelling and actually staying in the United States has always been one of my dreams, being an avid traveller, but unfortunately, I havenât been able to make this trip a reality due to its excessive cost." Was i right in replacing it?
Finally, should the courses' information also refer to the teacher who instructed me (especially since one of them has cooperated in the past with the internship's project mentor), or not?

Thank you in advance for any help given!

ESL, Formal, General & Business Letter Writing (English language)

Re: Internship Cover Letter Details

Internship Cover Letter Details