M. Afif Izzatullah: Living The Summers in The Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron, Germany

By Cintya Nursyifa

Editor Cintya Nursyifa

BANDUNG, itb.ac.id - Long holiday of the end of academic year 2014-2015 used by one of the ITB students to wander into the land of Europe. He is Muhammad Afif Izzatullah (Electrical Engineering 2010). There, he was a summer student at the Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY), Germany. DESY was one of particle physics research institute located in Hamburg and Zeuthen, Germany. In the summer of each year, provides an opportunity for DESY students around the world, minimum requirement is at the the end of the bachelor studies level or already get a bachelor degree and are currently completing a master's in the first year.

Afif, his nickname, was one of three delegates of Indonesia who participate in the DESY programme. Two other students are Limpat Nulandaya (Chemical Engineering 2010, Universitas Gadjah Mada) and Idham Hafez (Master in Electronics Engineering, Politecnico di Milano, Italy). This is the second year ITB sends delegates to DESY. In the year 2014 Andi Wahyu Multazam (Electrical Engineering 2010) and Dian Ahmad (Physics 2010), being a representative of Indonesia DESY Summer Student 2014. "This Program has been running for long time, but it's still a bit of a publication in the ITB. I appllied the registration personally, not through the ITB, but still supported by the head of the Electrical Engineering ITB recomendation, and also represented ITB as one of the participants of the Summer Student 2015, "said Afif.

The Registration Process


By the information from a friend to open a page http://summerstudents.desy.de/, Afif were interested to follow this program seriously. Afif mentioned, "The requirements are not difficult, even ITB Selection is more difficult. Just prepare a reference letter, CV, English certificate, experience and research essay. For ITB students level this should be quite common thing. Files should be sent directly to Germany with post. And a few months later the names of participants are announced that can join the program. " The opportunity join with research institutions in developed countries such as Germany would certainly not want to miss by Afif. In addition, thing convice to participate is the existence of a given salary every month. During there, DESY also facilitated lecture presented by researchers and lecturers in European circles of the world.

Working Experience at DESY

"Here I am placed on the ATLAS groups DESY and incorporated in a small Telescope Beam team with one student in Germany, Richard Leute (Physics of Freiburg University in Germany) and American students Beryl Rose Bell (Computer Science Hampshire College, USA)," said Afif recounts her experiences working with foreigners while at DESY.

"In DESY almost 50% of the workers are coming from outside Germany or international countries, so that the language used is the daily language of the United Kingdom. The people are very friendly and welcoming. They really welcomed us as summer students who work here only two months as a new family. No wonder every Friday there is an ice cream party, then there is also a BBQ party for welcoming the ATLAS groups and the kitchen at the office that can be accessed by all workers and being chatting place in the midst fatigue of research and work, "he added.

While at DESY, Afif worked with Richard, a person responsible for the installation and the analysis of the PMT (Photon Multiplier) in the Telescope Beam and Beryl, workers who get the project to the efficiency of the FSM (Finite State Machine) from the EUDAQ software or software for particle detection. Therefore, Afif really feel so in collaboration among departments there. Starting from the basics of particle physics are implemented in hardware and operated by electrical engineering computer engineering algorithms.

On weekends, Afif was free from work and can be travelled to various places. He often spent his time to enjoy the beautiful port city of Hamburg, the city where he lived until September.

Afif hopes that in the future more ITB students can followed the DESY. "This Program really opened up the insightful and expanded science knowledge. New experiences surely have become the main results. Therefore I hope this program can be followed by more ITB students each year, so can scent the name of Indonesia especially ITB and be widespread in Europe, "his message.
Documentation by M. Afif Izzatullah