Question: What is the most interesting thing about working at the Hadron Collider?

Claire Lee answered on 17 Jun 2013:

Hi! Hmmm, that’s a great question. Honestly, I think it’s how there are SO many different people, different types of people, from all over the world, all in one place, and all sharing a similar goal.

The main cafeteria is called Restaurant 1, and you can walk through there at any time of the day and see such a different range of people hanging out. You can eat your lunch with your friends, with Nobel prize winners discussing the latest theories on one side and a crowd of rowdy students discussing last Friday’s party on the other.

You can come to work in shorts and flip flops one day, and a suit and tie / cocktail dress the next, and nobody really bats an eye.

You end up working in groups with people from so many countries, all over the world, and you can learn as much as you want to from them – the only thing limiting you is how much you want to ask.

And, for the most part, people judge you on your merit – as a student you are often heavily involved in a very particular thing, so you become the expert at it. So you have professors, etc, asking your advice on something, and it doesn’t matter that they’re a prof and you’re a student – what matters is your work.

ATLAS is a 3000-person collaboration, with people all around the world working together and relying on each other for results and recommendations. It’s a hectic world to make your name and stand out in, but you just have to find your niche, where you fit in and what you love doing, and then do that. That’s really what science is all about anyway, doing what you love to do.