“If you mess up, it’s all on you”

When it comes to choosing what to study at university, many hesitate among several options. Not Yassine El Mohtadi. Ever since elementary school, his passion has been science, and particularly physics. “At elementary school, I had a great science teacher who was so passionate about his subject that he inspired my interest,” he says. Over the years, that interest also developed thanks to the documentaries he watched on TV and the videos he could find on the web.

But El Mohtadi’s love for science was not welcome by all. “It was hard to convince people around me that physics was a good choice,” he explains, adding, “In my country, Morocco, good students are expected to take paths that are more likely to secure one’s professional career, such as medicine or engineering. I am grateful to my parents for letting me choose.” Having gone against most people’s advice, however, came at a price. “If you mess up, it’s all on you,” he says, but immediately adds, “That pressure has helped me to stay motivated.”

El Mohtadi learnt about the ICTP Diploma Programme by chance. “The programme is not well known in Morocco. I only found out about it very late, so I ended up applying at the very last moment,” he explains. Although the application is free, in order to complete it he needed to have his former school certificates – all in Arabic or in French – translated into English. “The related cost was not trivial for my family and there was not much time left, so for a moment I wondered whether I should just give up,” he explains. “But I soon realized that the regret of not trying would have been worse than the sadness of being rejected,” he adds.

The good news about his admission to the ICTP Diploma Programme came while El Mohtadi was in Dublin, Ireland, to participate in a physics competition. “We did not qualify, but it was a great experience, and learning that I had been admitted to ICTP while I was there meant that May was the best month of 2024 for me. By far.”

During this year at ICTP, El Mohtadi specialized in high energy physics. “Since I was a child, I was always so fascinated by the fact that all the different things we can see around us are made of just a few fundamental building blocks,” he says. In his final project, he has studied a type of topological defect called cosmic strings—not to be confused with the ones studied in string theory—which may have formed in the early universe through the spontaneous breaking of certain symmetries. Their dynamics, and in particular their decay, can have wide-ranging implications on cosmology, especially for the production of dark matter, whose fundamental nature remains a mystery.

The Diploma programme was intense. “In just one year, you need to cover many topics, which can sometimes become overwhelming. It's more a marathon than a sprint, and you really need to persevere,” he says. But in addition to the academic challenges, at ICTP he also found a community of fellow students with whom he had a great time. “Being surrounded by people from all over the world has been the best thing about ICTP,” he explains, adding, “We all come from a variety of different places, and yet, together we have great discussions and crack some good jokes. It has been an extremely fulfilling and eye-opening experience.”

In the near future, El Mohtadi would like to continue investigating the fundamental laws of the universe by pursuing a PhD in theoretical physics at the International Center for Theoretical Physics-Asia Pacific (ICTP-AP) in China. Now that his year as a Diploma student is coming to an end and he thinks of the new cohort of students joining ICTP in September, his advice to them is to take advantage of the few weeks that are left before the courses start. “You need it, because it is going to be stressful,” he says. “But at the same time, you are going to learn so much, and not just about physics. This year is going to open your eyes to many different cultures and people,” he concludes.