I need help with or opinions on a letter of application.

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

The situation is rather complicated: I am studying electrical engineering and would like to do an internship abroad. Professor Y told me that he knows someone in North America and could ask whether it is possible.

Last friday, professor Y wrote me an e-mail stating “I got a positive response. However, before an official affirmation, they need your CV. Could you send that to Doctor X?”

So, now I composed this e-mail to Doctor X:
"Dear Dr. X,

since the 13th of October 1997 I am a student at the insert name University, majoring in electrical engineering.

Currently I am looking for a place to do an internship next year and Professor Y told me that you might have a vacant position.

Attached to this e-mail is my CV in microsoft word format. If there is anything else I need to provide, I would be happy to supply it.

With regards,

My Name"

As for the CV itself, it looks (better formatted, naturally) like this:

Curriculum Vitae

Name
Street
City
Country
Born on the xth of January 1977 in City, Country.
1.School:

Attended the Matthias-Claudius elementary school in City from summer 1983 to summer 1987.

Attended the Leibniz-Gymnasium (high school) in City from summer 1987 to summer 1996.

Abitur (A-levels / high school graduation): 21.06.1996

2.Civil service from 01.07.1996 to 31.07.1997.
3.Studies and Working Experience:

Internship at the Telekom in City from 04.08.1997 to 10.10.1997.

Studying Electrical Engineering at the University since 13.10.1997.

Internship at the Rheinbahn in City from 15.03.1999 to 09.04.1999.

Working 8 hours / week at the Institute of … and … at the University, since the 5th of may 2003.
List of Subjects

Name
Street
City
Country

1.“Vordiplom”:

Mechanics grade
Physics grade
Electrical Engineering, Basics I, II grade
Higher Mathematics I, II grade

Computer Science I, II grade
Higher Mathematics III, IV grade
Electrical Engineering, Basics III, IV grade
Machinery Elements grade

2.“Hauptdiplom”:

Materials in Electrical Engineering
Components in Electrical Engineering grade
Regulation Techniques and Systemtheory grade
Electrodynamics grade
High Voltage Engineering
Power Systems and Power Economics grade
Communication Engineering grade
Technical Acustic grade
Human-Machine-Systems
Manufcaturing Processes for Mikrosystems
History of Technology during the Industrialization
Patenting grade

List of Qualifications
Name
Street
City
Country

1.Programming

several dialects of Basic
C++, see homepage for an example of one of my C++ programs
HTML and some CSS
VHDL (Very high speed integrated circuit Hardware Description Language), see homepage as an example
2.Applications

Access during my civil service
Excel
Latex
Word
Works
3.Languages

German, native language
English, 9 years at school
Latin, 5 years at school
French, 2 years at school
4.Cleanroom Experience

Creation of PZT films via CSD
Lithography
Measurement and characterization of ferroelectric thin films

Ok, I replaced all personal information with a broad statement like “city”, “homepage” or “grade”, instead of writing it out on the forum. In the real CV, those words will be changed to the appropriate words, obviously.

So, should I send that off as it is or does it need to be altered somehow?

2

First change to the e-mail:

"Dear Dr. X,

since the 13th of October 1997 I am a student at the University of City, majoring in electrical engineering.

In may 2003 I started working as a Hiwi (“auxiliary scientist”) at the Institute of … at the University. Before that, I was working on a project there, entitled “title”. During the project and the regular work, I had the opportunity to work in a clean room and create PZT layers on Si wafers. Afterwards I had to measure the properties of the wafers.

Currently I am looking for a place to do an internship next year. Preferably that internship would be in a similar field as my work at the Institute of … Professor Y told me that you might have a vacant position.

Attached to this e-mail is my CV in microsoft word format. If there is anything else I need to provide, I would be happy to supply it.

With regards,

Name"

3

Opti … Were it I, I’d make one more change to the email.
I’d open it with, "I’m the student that Professor Y was speaking with you about. I would very much like to explore an internship with you, as my internship at the Institute of … gave me such great insights into the applications of my studies.

or something like that… I’d move the “I’m the guy you heard about” to the top of the email, maybe your Prof. said great things about you, but regardless, you want this Dr. to know, right away, that you’re not just dropping in out of the blue on him. I’ve found lots of very high level people have remarkable lack of reading comprehension beyond the first line, if they aren’t already ‘hooked’ into thinking this is something they actually want to know.

I’ll cruise through the resume sequence in a bit …

4

Damnation! I already sent it off. But thanks for the advice anyway, even though I didn´t include it (I guess I am too impatient. Silly me.) :frowning:

5

I might consider reformating my dates into “American Standard” format … Month/Day/Year … but then this is an educated individual who knows you are coming from Europe, so perhaps leaving them as is, gives them a certain … interest

6

Whoops!!! Well, I’m sure he’ll recognize that you are the person your prof was talking about. Woulda worked well if I’d read your most recent post, before I posted, eh? whoops!:smack: :smack: