By Lena Sitnikova, Outreach Assisistant
I’ll be honest. I’m a design student. When I applied, and later accepted the position of Outreach Assistant at TRIUMF, I envisioned that I would spend my summer quietly working at a small desk somewhere in the corner of some office, cranking out posters while largely oblivious to the physics around me. Well, the small desk was a fairly accurate assumption, the obliviousness – not so much. Having been at TRIUMF a grand total of 6 full workdays, I feel that I already know more than a first-year physics undergrad. It is probably just a feeling though.
Regardless, between the tour-guides, the co-ops and general atmosphere at TRIUMF, I have come to realize just how extensive the wealth of knowledge here is. And what’s even more, it’s all here because of the people. I’ve never really been one of the ‘physics crowd’, so it seemed to me that individuals that spent their days discussing nuclear fission and isotope decay couldn’t be like the “rest of us”. And I was right. Because they’re better! As I’ve discovered, people here at TRIUMF are normal individuals with kids, hobbies, etc., but what sets them apart is their passion for what they do.
Undoubtedly, it is this passion that makes them as easygoing and enthusiastic as I’ve discovered them to be. And hopefully, after spending a summer here, some of it will rub off on me!
