My name is Miguel Campos and I come from Chile. I am a Master student in high energy physics and my area of interest and research has always been theoretical physics. I received an email from the secretariat of my university at the beginning of the year explaining about the oportunity to apply to the CERN Summer Student Programme. I decided to apply even knowing that probably I would be doing something unrelated with my Master work, and I do not regret that decision. This programme offered me a unique oportunity to learn more and approach experimental physics an area completely new for me. I have been working for the ALICE collaboration under the supervision of Jason Kamin, who has taught me the subtleties of data analysis and data simulation, and this has proved to be a challenge for me. During the first weeks it was difficult to understand the details behind this kind of work but after some time and effort I have learnt a lot, for which I feel really thankful.

Moreover, working on a real experimental environment with people from all over the world has been an incredible fruitful experience. So, from the academic point of view I feel glad for what I learnt and did in these two months, in particular for what my project as a summer student was about. We were trying to develop a new way of account for background in a particular proccess ( ! ) with a more physical meaning that the usual method. This gave me the chance of apply what I already known from my theoretical background and also taught me several new things.

On the other hand, from the personal point of view, I have made friends coming from different places and different cultures which has opened my eyes in which concerns to consider my own culture. Also, the bonds and contacts I have made will probably last after my time as a summer student in CERN, which will be useful for both personal and academic reasons. Finally, being so far from home for the first time in my life has been a good experience and I have known all kind of different cities and places to where I would like to return someday, trying to make the most of my visit to Switzerland (and Europe in general, because this was my first time here). The memories of what I have done, seen, known and learnt will be with me for –probably– the rest of my life.

Klein Matterhorn, Switzerland (from top to bottom and left to right: Tomer (Israel), Claire (South Africa), Gudmundur (Iceland), Daniel (Ecuador), Felipe (Ecuador), Monika (India), Santiago (Ecuador), Vladimir (Macedonia), Guillermo (Southafrica/Argentina), Miguel (Chile)).