As a student, you don’t have to spend your summer sunbathing on the beach or bingeing on reality TV. To discover what options are out there, Laura Hiscott spoke to some early-career physicists who did summer internships in different places, from start-ups to university departments. Over the next three weeks, we will share their advice for making the most of these opportunities
When you’re a student, the summer holiday is a chance to recharge and recover from all your hard work during term time, but it is also an opportunity to gain some valuable experience for your post-university career. Through doing a summer internship, you can develop skills to boost your employability, while earning money and getting an insight into the type of work you enjoy. On top of that, internships can be a lot of fun too.
Below you will find three short case studies of former interns and their experiences, as well as a box of links to four longer case studies that we’re publishing throughout August.
As the varied experiences of these former interns show, placements come in all shapes and sizes, and there are plenty of them out there if you know where to look. Go to your university’s next careers fair, ask a careers adviser, or simply search online. Don’t be afraid to apply for things and try them out, even if you’re not sure they’re right for you in the long run. An internship is only three months, but you never know what you might learn or where it might lead you.
Jacob Austin Marks
Internship at: CERN
Found it through: Yale University programme
The project: fine-tuning neural network algorithms to distinguish between bottom and charm quarks more reliably
Outside work: explored Switzerland and France with other CERN interns
Top tip: “Go in with an open mind and try to have as many different experiences as possible. That will help to shape your perspective on physics, research and life in general, and will help you to find out what you’re most interested in.”
Lisa Tse
Internship at: Imperial College London
Found it through: Imperial website
The project: coding to try and degrade the performance of algorithms, to understand their weaknesses
Outside work: still based in London, where she studied, so she could meet up with friends
Top tip: “Try to find out beforehand who you’ll be working with and what their expertise is. No-one I was working with was familiar with the specific Python package I was using during my internship, so I couldn’t ask others for help if I had difficulties with the package. That wasn’t a problem for me, but it’s useful to know these things in advance, so you know what you’re getting yourself into.”
Jack Foster
Internship at: Crossfield Fusion, Harwell, Oxfordshire, UK
Found it through: SEPnet
The project: using two different types of software to model fusion reactions in different reactor designs
Outside work: internship was during 2020, so activities were restricted by COVID
Top tip: “Make sure that you read up on the company and any information that they provide you with, because it will really help you to hit the ground running.”
Summer internship case studies
For the lowdown on summer internships and more advice from people who took part in them, check out these longer case studies from the August 2021 issue of Physics World that we’re publishing throughout this month.
Maria Violaris “I developed general research skills, which are useful in both industry and academia”
Constantine Pelesis “I built up my network and got an understanding of how a whole company works together”
Marion Cromb “I learnt good coding practice, and the code was actually sold to customers at the end”
Claire Houghton “I got to see real scientific experiments, where no-one knows exactly what’s going to happen”
