By summerstudent Damla Can Atıcı>
When I was a kid, I once asked my dad:
“How does a DVD have a whole movie inside, and how can we watch it on TV?”
He looked at me and said,
“This is beyond human technology. I’m pretty sure it was invented by aliens.”
Years passed. The curiosity never left. And now… I’m working on understanding how memory technology might one day operate at ultrafast speeds.
So yeah…
I guess I’m the alien.
How I met my supervisor
During my previous internship at a research institute, we were collaborating with a team from Berlin. We had a beamtime scheduled — the long-awaited experiment where everything finally comes together — and it required us to work in shifts, around the clock.
In my shift, I was assigned to run the control code. Sounds cool, right? It was terrifying. I was so nervous because, during my shift, I’d be completely on my own. No one to ask. No backup. While learning how everything was operating, I had so many dumb questions. But there was this one professor from the Berlin team — incredibly knowledgeable, and somehow even more patient. He kindly answered every question I asked, no matter how basic.
Then came the shift. The Berlin team had already left. We started the experiment.
And guess what?
Within minutes… the code crashed.
I tried everything I could think of. I stared. I debugged. Nothing worked. So, the local team called that same Berlin professor to ask what we should do.
He said:
“Can I speak to Damla?”
Next thing I know, I’m on the phone with him. I had the phone squeezed between my shoulder and ear, typing with just two fingers, hands shaking. I truly didn’t think I could fix it.
At that moment, I had two clear options in my head:
- Hang up and run away screaming
- Pretend to faint
But then, calmly, he said something I’ll never forget:
“I know it’s not easy what I’m describing. I could fix this remotely, but I want you to do it — so you can learn.”
That sentence changed everything. Suddenly, I didn’t feel alone. I felt trusted. Encouraged. And… I did it.
I fixed the error.
(The experiment still failed, but that’s another story for another blog post.)
Later, I realized something important:
I didn’t just want to work in this field — I wanted to work with him.
So I applied to the institute where he works.
And now, here I am, doing my internship under his supervision.
Just a small-town kid with big dreams
I was just a small-town kid with big dreams. And honestly — I still am.
My mind was always full of why and how. Since I was little, every time I understood a law of the universe, I felt this strange rush of joy, as if something deep inside me had just clicked.But I didn’t just want to understand the world — I wanted to change it. On the stairs of my elementary school, there was a banner with a question:
“Why did I come here?”
I think… this is why I came here.
And maybe being a scientist means staying a curious child forever.
About the author: Damla Can Atıcı studies Electrical and Electronics Engineering at Ege University in Izmir, Türkiye. She is currently participating in the ISSP2025 summer program and works with the Electronic Structure Dynamics department at Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin, under the supervision of Prof. Jan Lüning. Her work focuses on ultrafast spin dynamics in magnetic multilayers using femtosecond X-ray spectroscopy.