I spent two weeks at a physics summer program about physics. This, however, doesn’t begin to actually reflect the experience that I had. These two weeks were one of the best ones of my life: I was able to meet reputed physicists, visit Fermilab(!), learn to code, experimentally detect muons coming from stars light-years away, work with data from the LHC at Cern(!), and do a lot more fun stuff apart from the physics.

L1
I learned a new coding language called MATLAB during my time there, and my experience in HTML helped me learn some parts of this language easily, however, I faced some difficulty in others. The basic code I could comprehend better than others because of that experience, however when I chose to do my project on GUI coding (a complex code), I found it rather difficult to comprehend and make GUI tools (although I did eventually succeed in making a few basic GUI’s after spending enough time and effort on it).

L2
I learnt a lot from this program – ice-skating, Latin dance, MATLAB, experimental physics, and so on. Since this was my first time doing them, it was rather difficult for me to learn them and I had to practice and make effort to learn them.

L4
This summer program was during my 2nd year of IBDP and I was missing two weeks of classes. In order to do the summer program, I had to come early for a couple weeks, complete some of the syllabi I was going to miss before and after the program. I also had my EE and CWT – 3 submissions during this trip and I had to write it during my flights and stay up late in my dorm completing these assignments. I made all of this effort because I really wanted to participate in this program and benefit from it as much as I could.

L5
We had group projects when we were coding and detecting muons, and a lot of different activities there required us to plan and work together. We, for example, had to create a short skit and play team games. Cumulatively, this helped me work with other people and revealed to me the benefits of working collaboratively.