CERN Accelerating science

Amine Riad Remache

Since this was technically my first time in Europe, a lot of things were totally new for me, but I really like the diversity of cultures that we have here at CERN and how everyone is so nice. Of course, the first thing that comes in mind when you hear about CERN is physics and getting to visit the experiments and to see by your own eyes the technology that humans can build is probably the best and most memorable thing from this 2-months , unfortunately I couldn’t manage to get an ATLAS and LHCb underground tour, but hey, at least I still have something to comeback for. I also like how CERN is so open and transparent and I think that’s they core thing that contributed to its fast progress, and I like how that the impact of that progress is beyond physics and affects other fields like medicine and computer science.

For me the lectures were more for exploration rather that exploitation, because I didn’t have the required background to understand all of it, but it was still math you know ? so when a lecturer was writing or showing a formula, I understood how he jumped from step a to step b, but I just can’t map with any concrete concept I know. But there was a particular lecture that I really liked ( From raw data to physics results ), where I discovered how amazing the system is built. Because before coming here, I always thought that what people were doing here at CERN was rocket science for me, but now I realized that, it is still rocket science and every little detail matters ( c’mon they deal with the smallest particles in the universe, YET ) but somehow, I feel that it is rocket science that I can do. The whole idea behind a program like this is of course meeting new people, and discovering other cultures, trying new food, visiting new places, and it was the case for me:

I made friends from the IT department, from the Summer Student Program, from the OpenLab Program and even outside CERN, and in most of the cases, I felt comfortable with them because it felt like home and we share a good piece of common ground. I don’t want to stereotype, but we do have a lot of nerds here at CERN, people that just do what they like in a way that makes them feel comfortable, and I really like that. I also learned how to cook, and to be honest, I never felt as alive as this period, and I think that all this made me grow as a person faster than I thought, and helped me have a clear vision of what I will be doing after, because my goal was never to be famous or rich, as I’m still looking for my self-accomplishment, and coming here to CERN made me more thirsty for challenges.