A memorable summer of schools

One of the hallmarks of doing a PhD is having the opportunity to travel and to network with others in the field. With this in mind, I aplied to three summer schools, the Birmingham-Leiden Summer School on Computational Social Cognition (Birmingham, UK), the Computational Modeling of Cognition in a Social Context (Hinterstoder, Austria), and NeuroBridges (Cluny, France). Whilst I was virtually guaranteed to get a place in Birmingham, I honestly did not expect to get a place in either the CMMC or NeuroBridges, both being well-known and internationally competitive. So, it was a nice surprise to be accepted onto all three!

(At the same time, I also applied to the European Forum Alpbach as a Scholarship Holder again, not expecting to be accepted, but was also successful there as well, being only one of ~300 Scholars from over 7,000 applicants!)

The Birmingham-Leiden summer school was a great mix between stimulating keynotes, engaging practicals and fun socials! The diversity and scope of the attendees also demonstrated the reputation that Birmingham and Leiden have in the field of computational social neuroscience. Traveling to Austria, the CMMC was the most challenging of the three, but also the most rewarding in terms of gaining skills in computational modeling. The tutorials were highly practical, and whilst toiling away into the late hours debugging my Stan code was not rewarding at the time, I now see the benefits in my development as a budding computational neuroscientist.

Finally, attending NeuroBridges in France was something a bit different from the conventional summer school. Intended by Ahmed El Hady and Yonatan Loewenstein to be a bridge between Israeli and Arab students in times of political distress, it has a central theme around decision-making, with lectures from leading experts in a variety of disciplines including molecular biology, neuroscience, psychology and economics. Beyond the curriculum and projects, there were plenty of social activities for attendees and instructors to get to know each other. Whilst the tragic situation in the Middle East worsened day-by-day, we hardly discussed this, instead being far more interested in learning about others’ diverse cultures and histories. A demonstrative example that science and intrigue transcends all cultures, religions and ethnicities.

It was a truly great summer, and I hope to continue developing the friendships made with all of the amazing people I met.

Aamir