Grade 10 student Carmen Wong is visiting TRIUMF for 5 weeks. During her time here, she will spend three afternoons a week with different research groups around the lab. These posts are her notes from her experiences. During her first week, she spent time with the Communications Group, assisting with events associated with the announcement of the Higgs Boson.
Carmen is at TRIUMF as part of the Emerging Aboriginal Scholars Summer Camp put on by the Pacific Institute for Mathematical Sciences and the First Nations House of Learning at the University of British Columbia. For the month of July, students from the camp are placed in research environments after their morning classes. Carmen is the third young aboriginal student to visit and work at TRIUMF, following in the footsteps of Gabriel Stewart and Dylon Martin.
My First Week - Exciting
Before my first day working at TRIUMF, I came to meet with Marcello Pavan and Melania Alvarez who are in charge of the my job here at TRIUMF and the PIMS 5-week math and English summer camp I am participating in. Marcello briefly explained what I was going to be doing at TRIUMF, then showed me where my desk was going to be. I am only going into grade 10 but finished science 10 so I know very little about physics. I am interested in it, but know very little. I was very excited to start working here.
My first day working at TRIUMF was a Tuesday (because Canada day was on Sunday) and a lot was happening. When I arrived, Marcello was with a man from CBC. He brought the man and myself upstairs, and showed me to my desk. I was introduced to Jennifer, Jordan and Byron. Byron wanted me to read a series of essays he wrote to see if it was simple enough for me to understand. Next, they brought me down to a meeting and talked about the new particle consistent with the Higgs boson and an open house. I helped Megan and Jennifer set up the auditorium for the open house. It is quite busy around here at the moment. I think that this job will be very interesting.
On second day, I arrived at TRIUMF at 1:30 but Marcello and Megan were in a meeting so I had nothing to do. I sat at my desk, read a bit of Byron’s essays and wrote this reflection. When they got out of their meeting, Megan told me that this morning, the open house that was going to happen turned into a press conference instead. At 2:41, Marcello asked me to proofread a booklet about giving TRIUMF tours. I was glad to be able to help with something. There was so much information in the booklet and I learned a lot. It is my last day for the week here at TRIUMF and I had a great time. I am excited for the next week to come.
-- Written by Carmen Wong, PIMS student