December 2, 2016
CSCS opens its doors on request to the public as well as institutions interested in discovering the world of high performance computing. There are visits from private companies, academic and governmental institutions, universities and schools. During these visits you can learn more about the centre and see the supercomputers that allow researchers to demonstrate science that was never possible with theory and experimentation alone. Students from the Scuola Media Tesserete had the opportunity to not only learn about CSCS but also to discover different professional positions present at the centre. Below, the teacher Chantal shares with us her thoughts about the visit:
“We had the pleasure of visiting CSCS with a class of 22 students of the last year of the secondary school, so 14 year old teenagers . The visit was part of a bigger project that has the aim to assist our students in the difficult choice of what to do after the obligatory school. We started off by contacting CSCS and we discussed together a solution that could allow the students to be protagonists and not merely spectators. CSCS proposed a morning where, in addition to one-way presentations, the students had the chance to talk directly with the employees, change opinions, ask questions and see with their eyes what is like to work at the centre.
During the first part of the visit the students were given some information about CSCS and could follow three testimonials sharing their professional path. After that, the students were split up into smaller groups and had the opportunity to meet different professionals in their working environment in order to directly see what it is like to work in this position and listen to the different experiences.
By organizing the visit this way the students had the possibility to see behind the scenes of a company and learn about the different roles that need to be covered in order for a supercomputing centre to be successful (not only Systems Engineers but also Scientists, HR Manager, administrative positions, etc.). We are really happy about the visit as the students came back to the classroom being enthusiastic and having clearer ideas on how the professional world works. We are grateful to CSCS for giving our students the chance to discover all the possible opportunities there are and the different paths that can be followed in order to reach a professional goal”.
