SCD Industrial Placement Student Profile
Christos Nikitas – Systems Administrator 2020-21
Christos Nikitas, from Cyprus, currently studies BSc Computer Science at the University of Manchester. He is spending his placement year with the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC).
Christos is working in the Scientific Computing Department (SCD) as a part of the team operating and maintaining the Tier-1 Centre for the GridPP collaboration. The team was recently involved in the successful search for the Higgs Boson particle and currently manages one of the twelve large computing centres (globally) who provide the processing and data analysis infrastructure for the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).
Describing his day-to-day activities, Christos says, “I wake up at 7:45 and start work at 8.00. I have two meetings every morning, where I catch up with what has been going on in RAL Tier-1 and am assigned a few tasks for the day, if I don't already have one".
Christos was attracted to apply for this role because, “I like working with technology and trying to help push both research and technology forwards – the Science and Technology Facilities Council seemed liked a good place to do that."
Christos then further explains what he enjoys most about his role, “I like the fact that I am helping with research in the field of physics and computing. Also, I get paid!"
Like many workers, Christos is not currently able to work on-site due to restrictions put in place due to COVID-19. However, this has an additional benefit for him as he can live and work at home in Cyprus! Christos is happy with this situation adding, “I quite like it. I don't waste time commuting, so I can wake up later and when I get off work I'm already home, which is great. As I am working from Cyprus at the moment - which is two hours ahead of UK time - I start at 6am UK time and end at 2pm."
Christos tells students who may be thinking about applying for a role in STFC to, “research the position they are applying for and be confident about it."
When Christos is not helping push forward research in physics and computing, he enjoys playing video games, meeting with friends and watching movies. Christos has also recently set himself the challenge of learning how to do a handstand.
