Member State Summer Students 2013: A word from the organizers…

The Summer Student Programme does not mean only work during the Summer for the HR team – the Programme for us begins in October with the publication on the web of the vacancy notice for the programme and ends when the last students leave at the end of the following September. Applications are considered and validated from October to the application deadline, usually at the end of January. Assessing over 1500 applications is quite a task! And that’s just Member States – we have the same number of Non-Member States applications too.

The selections are made in March by the supervisors and the lucky students are informed in April. Contracts are prepared and sent in May and the first students start arriving in June. On each of the 5 arrival dates the Summer Student team meets and greets the students for a brief induction session to inform them about their Summer at CERN. Whilst the students are here we organize visits to the experiments, small hands on workshops around CERN and coordinate the 6 week lecture programme. We organize a welcome drink and Poster session and student sessions (where the students give their own lectures about their assigned project). All in all we are here to help the students have a fruitful summer and get the most out of their time at CERN.

So for the HR team, the Summer Student Programme keeps us busy throughout the year and especially whilst the students are here from June to September, but it’s all worth it as at the end of their stay many students say it’s been “the best Summer of my life”.

From left to right: Sharon Lynne Hobson, Eva Tolosa, Laura Salnier: the HR team that ensures that CERN Summer Students get the “Best summer of their lives”.