My name is Samuel Andres Navarro Leiva and I am a 4^th year Physics student. I came from my home country, Chile, to UBC in 2011 with plans of becoming a biologist. However, once I learned how much memorization Biology involved, I lost interest in it as a career path. I then turned to Physics, mostly because I enjoyed every 1^st year Physics course I took. I quickly learned that Physics is a lot more difficult than depicted in 1^st year. One of the first lessons you learn in 2^nd year Special Relativity is “Physics as you’ve known it ‘till know is wrong”. Nevertheless, I maintain my interest for Physics and have come to really enjoy the area of Relativity.

Throughout my degree I have also taken a few Computer Science courses. As a matter of fact, this past summer I worked at Vision Critical, a software-as-a-service company. I really enjoyed the “play hard & work hard” mentality at this company. We had to produce a lot of code and meet several deadlines; yet, there was very little stress as there were always company-wide activities where one could socialize with coworkers and managers alike. Working here motivated me to pursue Computer Science as a second degree. In future, I plan to explore lines of work where I can use my knowledge of both Physics and Computer Science.