I worked at Fermilab (FNAL) as a Diploma/PhD student and really enjoyed it. The atmosphere was collegial and the science was interesting. You feel like part of

I worked at Fermilab (FNAL) as a Diploma/PhD student and really enjoyed it. The atmosphere was collegial and the science was interesting. You feel like part of a community, and everybody is enthusiastic about their work (and for some reason, triathlon). As somebody else mentioned, FNAL is very open in contrast to the other national labs. The guards are very friendly, and tourists come in to see the buffalo and the architecture. (One potential downside is that your experience in industry does not count much and it might be hard to get in without a proper academic career. That is not a problem with the national labs, but academia in general.) I had this letter from the lab founder Robert Wilson on my wall, which reflects the spirit well: https://www.fnal.gov/pub/today/images/images09/WilsonBureaucracy_Nov23.jpg https://www.fnal.gov/pub/today/images/images09/WilsonBureauc... > Dear collegues, > an all to common failing of large institutions is to fall into the bureaucratic morass - complicated procedures, red-tape and all that. That's terrible. > Let's try hard to keep the good old can-do informal spirit of Fermilab alive! I ask each of you to be intolerant of creeping bureaucracy > > Bob Wilson