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High School Fellow Reflects

19 August 2015

Weiwei Meng was a recipient of the 2015 TRIUMF High School Fellowship program.  Her six-week work experience was with the AAPS-associated company, CRM Geotomography. Read about her experience below.

The TRIUMF High School Fellowship aims to offer a realistic research experience. As our idea of careers in scientific research may be limited to what we have seen on TV, it is important to have an idea of what careers in science may entail before we embark on our four year journey through university that will lead us to our future careers.

For the past six weeks I have been working with Dr. Doug Schouten on a project regarding muon geotomography. Current muon geotomography technology is being used in mineral exploration in existing mines.

In my first week, I definitely felt like I was in unfamiliar territory. I was bombarded with unfamiliar terminology and foreign concepts. Physics 12 definitely does not prepare you for this kind of thing (not that I expected it to). And it shouldn’t. This fellowship is a learning experience. You’re exposed to topics that you have barely seen in a classroom setting and you get to learn with a hands-on approach.

During my fellowship, I have learned the basics of coding in Python, used a beta particle-emitting source and writing scripts to automate data acquisition, among other things, of course. This experience was truly invaluable and has certainly helped prepare me for my post-secondary studies and a career in science.
Thank you to TRIUMF and CRM GeoTomography for this incredible experience!