A very special visit from India
From India to Europe with a single destination in mind: CERN. This was the dream of five young students who convinced their parents to fund their travel costs and their school to organise the trip. Now, of course, they all plan to come back here as physicists. We have no doubt that they'll succeed!
Students, parents and teachers from Varanasi (India) are photographed here with CERN's Mick Storr and John Ellis.
Everything was triggered by an electrical engineering course that some of the students were following at their school in Varanasi (India). Eeshan Jaiswal and his friend were involved in a project on electric charges and kept asking me about fundamental particles and how the subatomic world works,” says Dr. Raka Ray Mondal, a physics teacher at the Rajghat Besant High School, who organised the trip. “They were very keen on the project and we all started to get enthusiastic.”
The next step was to find a contact person here at CERN but this came quite naturally as Archana Sharma from the CMS Collaboration was a batchmate of a biology teacher at the same school and also the mother of one of the students involved in the initiative. “We made sure that their days at CERN would be very busy! They visited ATLAS, the Computing Centre and LINAC and met several scientists and talked to them about various topics,” says Archana, who took care that the visit program was sufficiently intense and impactful.
The feedback from the students confirms that the visit was a fantastic experience for them. “I will take back all my enthusiasm to India and will try to share it with my classmates as much as I can,” says Eshan. And Isha, a student approaching the age of seventeen, adds: “I will tell all the students I know how exciting a scientific organisation can be!” Shanu, who is from a different school but heard about the programme from his friends, says: “Everything has now changed in my life, I now understand the world of particle physics better. Before I came to CERN my knowledge was only superficial but now I have seen the experiments with my own eyes. I hope we will be able to stay connected with CERN and possibly organise video-conferences with my school.” Shivangi, 15, the youngest student in the group, says: “I had to face and overcome several problems in order to be able to take part in the trip but the experience made it all worthwhile! The exposure to knowledge and technology I've had was just fantastic. I initially had some doubts but now that I've met scientists I just want to come back here during my university course!” Aditi’s dream was to “explore” the subatomic world and she is very happy about what she learned at CERN and the “amazing level of inspiration” she was exposed to.
The four days at CERN turned out to be a fascinating experience for the parents as well. “Eshan’s father is a businessman and he had to close his business during the visit here but he is so happy! He has been cooking good food for everybody every morning,” says the teacher.
Students, we look forward to your next visit here as distinguished physicists!
