Career and Internship advice in HPC

I'm a second-year CS undergraduate from India interested in HPC, GPU computing, and parallel systems.

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Over the past year, I've focused heavily on building my profile through research projects, CUDA/OpenMP/MPI, distributed CPU/GPU workloads, hackathons, and HPC-related events, and actively participated in HPC competitions and activities whenever possible.

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One challenge I've noticed is that HPC opportunities for undergraduates in India seem extremely limited compared to fields like AI, web development, or general software engineering. Because of that, I've also been applying to opportunities abroad.

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However, despite all these efforts, I've had essentially no success securing HPC internships or research positions so far. Most applications are either rejected or never receive a response. At the same time, it's becoming increasingly difficult to gain meaningful hands-on experience with real HPC systems and large-scale projects, which makes it hard to build the practical experience often expected for future employment in the field.

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I'm passionate about HPC and intend to continue pursuing it, but I'd appreciate any honest feedback or advice from those already working in the area. I'm particularly interested in understanding whether my experience is typical for undergraduates trying to enter HPC and what steps would be most valuable going forward.

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Thanks!