William Coventry

My industrial placement was at CERN, home of the Large Hadron Collider. I have been working in the Beams Department, Beam Instrumentation Group. The Group is responsible for designing, building and maintaining the instruments that allow observation of the particle beams and the measurement of related parameters for all CERN accelerators and transfer lines.

My project was to design, test and implement the front-end electronics for the new beam trajectory measurement system on the Booster Synchrotron.

During my placement, I developed a lot of new ideas and gained some experience in RF electronics. Knowing I was contributing to such an interesting project was very motivating. It was very rewarding when I recorded some good results, and it gave the confidence to try out new ideas and really deepen my understanding of high frequency systems.

I was immediately submerged with terms and technologies that I’ve never heard of before, such as Beam Position Monitors. My first 2 years at Leeds University taught me the fundamental theory and practical skills to adapt my knowledge, and improve from there.

The Career Centre helped me optimise my CV and cover letter, which I think helped me secure my internship at CERN. They really helped me to find out exactly what the employer was looking for in a placement student.