Getting to work on the site of the world's largest and most powerful particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider, would definitely qualify as an opportunity of a lifetime. This opportunity has presented itself to Jimil Desai, BTech in Information and Communication Technology, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Class of 2022. Jimil has been selected to work at CERN as a Technical Student for a year. Based in Geneva, Switzerland, CERN is the European Council for Nuclear Research that operates the largest particle physics laboratory globally and has 23 member states. Jimil works with the Data Storage and Management group and is responsible for building containerised packages for the data services running at CERN. "Called the CERNBox, it's exactly like Google Drive, with top-notch privacy settings. This would eventually be capable of storing data in the PetaByte scale," he says.

The 2022 graduate was always fond of participating in hackathons and other Programming Club activities at Ahmedabad. During the summer of 2021, he interned at CERN. "I couldn't be onsite with them last summer, though, due to Covid restrictions; it was a remote internship. But they appeared impressed with the work I did. So this year, they offered me an internship as a Technical Student." Thrilled would be an understatement to describe Jimil's reaction. Now, as part of a 20-strong passionate team that is a melting pot of cultures, including Italian, German, and Portuguese, Jimil says that life is very different from living in India but one that his University prepared him for. "I will forever be thankful for the clarity in thinking that I developed at Ahmedabad University. The University focuses hard on improving interpersonal communications and collaborative skills, and not without reason," he says. Shared interests and camaraderie are what keep this diverse bunch of individuals together. At the end of his year-long internship, Jimil might qualify for the CERN Fellowship, which will offer him extended employment at the organisation. And that is already on his mind. "It's an environment I would prefer to live in for a long time," he says.