u/ThinSavings8614

Company Applied for mine with their own vendors.
Submitted April 15th
Recipet April 17th
Approved May 5th

Profile:
PhD, 150 citations, 6 references, 4 internal, 2 external, few best paper awards, 20 papers in competitive conferences, 50+ peer reviews (AC, PC, Chair of some big conferences)

I am breaking down and crying so much during a period that is supposed to the happiest time of my life. I am 28m, studied in tier-1 colleges in India, interned at the biggest names in tech, and world class reserach univeristies abroad during my undergrad, joined a PhD at a premier school under a legend in my field, again interned in frontier companies, and now have a high 6-digit salary abroad. Honestly, I love what I do and I do not work to make them proud or something, I genuinely enjoy my academics and life. However, given the success I had across, I have given them enough bragging rights, reputation, societal appreciation and whatever. My parents are orthodox, and are suckers for "reputation", "what others will say" and fit the classic Indian clutter of controlling parents.

Recently, in the start of May I shared I am in a relationship with a girl, who speaks the same language, same religion and wierdly she is also from the same caste. I did it in the most sweetest way possible, I put up a nice presentation with photos from me and them as a child and across the ages, I credited them that I have achieved things in life because of how they helped me with opportunities, I shared how grateful I am to them, How I respect them and How relationships with them matter to me, and how I feel happy around my partner and intend to marry her.

And boy they lost it. I told them over zoom since we live far away. The wierd thing is my parents have also lived abroad most their lives and they are not ready to even have a conversation. It was my birthday last week they dopped a text message wishing me happy birthday. me and parents were close, we used to speak daily for atleast an hour on movies, cricket, politics, food and what not. After I told them the news they have not called till now, I have called them a few times and they just do not want to talk about, and rush through the call or just stare at me. My mom has spoken 4 words since that day - and bye being 2 of them. I mean I am balling dude after each call. I am defending my PhD in a few hours, I have worked hard for it, my dad dropped this formal message "it is essential that you remain fully focused on completing the dissertation, proceeding with the new job, and positioning yourself effectively for the next phase of your professional journey. With regard to the matter disclosed and given the sensitivity of the topic, it would be more appropriate to discuss this in person rather than over a phone call. We can take this up for a more detailed discussion when you visit India for stamping. Until then, we can park the topic. Let me know if any." I mean I dont even know what to say. I dont feel like calling them, I dont feel like I value their opinion anymore. I feel so bad for my partner as well, she is so supportive, and just a wonderful person, her family is amazing as well. My partner is 4 months elder to me and my parents have been ripping me apart for that.

If you have any kind words to say or advice please do.

I have interned at big tech 3 times across my PhD and now will joing a place where I interned. Here are things that helped me bag return internship offers and convert internships into full time offers:

1. Talk to everyone, put up meetings, grab lunch, grab ice cream whatever maximize every second you can with anyone. Build a core set of people who can vouch for you and write a testimonial for you in your final review.
2. Keep collecting evidence, present your work to leaders, managers, across teams and take every opportunity you get to showcase your work and collect evidence of appreciation, screenshots, emails etc. and include them in your final review.
3. Be innovative in how you go about your research, as an intern we have the opportunity to bring freshness in approach and perspective as long as its suited to answer your research goals. Try new methods, double down on your evidence through secondary research.
4. Package your findings in the most simple and amazing way. Here are my two personal favorites and I "like" to believe this helped me convert to full time: 1. Insight Reels: I created montage of people sharing their opinions, montage of usbaility issues to hammer the users pain points, joy points to my leaders/managers and team. 2. Comics: This is my favorite, and helps convey the entire story in a 2 rows of comic strips with nice relatable characters. Before my final week, I created a comic ook which walked through the entire consumer experience and painpoints for the product I was working on. And I left it on the table of my manager and stakeholders for them to read. I recieved great appreciation for it. Bottom Line: think creative, be fresh and execute with rigor.
5. If you are in big-tech or work with teams which are on the cutting edge of AI/LLMs do whatever it takes to be involved in conversations and contribute to studies. You will build solid experience and it should open up your horizions and expand your skill set.
6. While this might sound as "attempting to please", as an intern more often then not I am under constant pressure to execute and highlight I am not just "good" but to show I am "extraordinary". Constantly keep trying to think one step ahead, and try to answer questions your manager might need to answer to their manager. A mentor told me "ask your skip what work problem is NOT putting them to sleep, and consider yourself with an offer if you figure it out"