How to… Cope with Starting University

Another “How to” post for you all! My first year of university was now three years ago (which is quite scary really!), however I’m lucky enough to have at least two more years to go. I really have loved my time at university, but I know that leaving home to go to uni is terrifying as well as exciting! Hopefully I’ll help settle a few nerves, and maybe you’ll gain a few helpful tips!

Don’t be worried about being nervous

Some people might not show it, but everyone will be a little bit nervous and it’s not a bad thing. For most people it will be their first experience of living away from home on a particularly long term basis, and for some it will be the first experience of having to “fend for themselves”. You may also be panicking about making friends and whether or not you’ll actually enjoy the course. I certainly did. I was terrified that I’d made the wrong decision; that I was actually going to find out I was terrible at Physics and that everyone would hate me. It wasn’t true, but these feelings are natural. Just don’t let them consume you and spoil the (hopefully) excited feelings too – university is a brilliant experience for the vast majority of people and to enjoy it fully you can’t let yourself worry too much.

Take as many of the opportunities available to you as you can

University will present many opportunities to you that you’ve never had before. This will range from all sorts of societies to other events hosted by your university. Going to lectures for other subjects, attending talks on topics that interest you, checking out some local or student talent at gig nights or giving something completely new to you a try will not only be fun, it really gets you involved. Your first year at university will be challenging (and most likely tiring) but you want to be able to look back on a fantastic year, so if that means stepping out of your comfort zone and saying yes to trying things you wouldn’t have before – why not give it a go? However don’t overwhelm yourself – you have got a degree to do as well!

Enjoy meeting new people

You will meet so many people during your first week at university – some of whom you will never speak to again! I was so shy before I went to university but realised quickly that talking to people and pushing myself to introduce myself and to be friendly to everyone was the best way forwards. Trying to meet as many people as you can means you find the people who you want to be friends with sooner. Don’t limit yourself to your corridor or flat, try and meet people at other social events. A good tip is to find yourself another person to go around with, approaching people as a pair is less daunting, and being able to make an introduction is a good conversation starter! Remembering names can be a challenge too but don’t be afraid to ask people for their name again (well unless you’ve asked loads of times before!) – I used to go back to my room and jot down names and a fact about them just to try and remember them in the future (it worked too!) You will also meet so many different types of people, so don’t expect everyone to be like people you already know. University brings together people from all over the world, with vastly different life experiences. This makes it really interesting to get to know people, but can also be challenging as you may be forced to a) meet people who you never want to speak to again or b) force you to reconsider assumptions you may have made about people before. However treat every new introduction as an opportunity to make a friend and you should have a great time! Meeting new people can also be a great way to challenge yourself to try new things – why not go along with your new friend and try that martial arts class they were talking about? It could be fun!

Top tip: Common conversation starters are “What are you studying?”, “Which halls/ college are you in?” and “Whereabouts in the country are you from?”. These questions get pretty tiring pretty quickly so try and get to know people by asking other questions too and starting a conversation from there. Ask them about their hobbies, whether they plan to try anything new whilst at university, what have they enjoyed at uni so far etc.

Be yourself

University is a great time to try new things, but this doesn’t mean you have to change who you are completely! I got to university and was able to feel more confident in myself as I was surrounded by people who were like me – I was no longer immediately stereotyped as the awkward nerdy “good girl” and so could really be me! So I changed, but it was more about becoming the person I’d tried to hide away which was lovely. But as a warning – don’t turn yourself into someone else. You have to be honest with yourself about who you are and who you want to be. If you don’t want to go out drinking every night – that’s fine! If you don’t know whether you are in with a crowd of people you don’t want to be – be brave and find someone new! You’ll have a much better time in the long run if you’re not keeping up a pretense, and you’ll find your closest friends too by showing the world who you really are and what you are really interested in.

Stay safe and healthy

Make sure you take care of yourself. University does present challenges, some as trivial as surviving your first bout of Fresher’s Flu (as you mingle with everyone elses germs – yuck!) to others that are much more important like getting home safely in a new city after your first night out. Find out who you can go to or call for help, make sure you follow and guidance given to you and stay safe! Take advantage of anything that makes you feel safer too, be it paying a bit extra for a taxi to make sure you don’t have to walk home by yourself or seeing if you can get a free personal alarm from your university welfare service. Most people are fine, but you don’t want to risk it! Also your first few weeks will be hectic, but make sure you take some time for yourself and make sure you don’t completely run yourself down otherwise you’ll probably not make the best start to your actual degree course. Another good tip is to make your room your own when you get there, and don't leave your unpacking too late. It will save you time in the long run and gives you a nice space to retreat to when you need your own space!

Overall though, have an amazing time. I’ve loved my time at university and I wish any Freshers the best of luck! 

Reflections on being an Ogden Blogger

NB. Apologies, this was meant to be published a little while back! However due to lack of internet whilst on holiday, followed by a mad rush to move back up to Durham and into my new house and the setting up of internet there I've only just had the opportunity to post! 

It was only when I’d got back from being on holiday that I realised that the Blogden year was over! If you’ve been following this blog, you may know that it was started as part of the Blogden, a blogging scheme run by the Ogden Trust. The Ogden Trust is an organisation that promotes Physics education through a variety of schemes. I first became involved through a teaching internship in 2013, and then went on to win the competition to become an Ogden Blogger!

So how has it gone? Well, this year has been fairly tough for me. I suffered from quite a lot of ill health, which made completing blogs a lot more difficult as I couldn’t look at computer screens without feeling sick and getting headaches. As such, my blog posts at the start of the year were posted at more random time intervals. I also had a pause during the exam period, as I really needed to concentrate on studying. However, overall I did manage to get an average of one post every fortnight, even if they were occasionally posted in quick succession when I’d had to catch up a bit!

Despite all that, I think it has gone pretty well! I don’t know how many regular readers I have had (if you are a regular reader say hello below in the comments section – it would be nice to hear from you!), but pretty much every post I’ve done has gathered some interest from many different places across the world (which I think is very cool!) A few statistics for you:

As of 20^th September 2014 (when I collected all the stats together!)

Total Page Views: 1565

Month with the most page views: March - my post about being a female in a STEM subject"I'm not an anomaly - I'm just me!" gained quite a lot of attention!

Post with the most page views: According to the "clicks" on individual posts "How to... Cope with Physics exams" gained the most views! Hopefully it helped some people out whilst they were studying!

Post that generated the most comments/ reaction:This depends on which platform! "How to... Cope with Physics exams" (above) generated the most interest on blogger itself, however "Best bits of being a Physics student" got the most reaction on twitter!
Reader statistics: Most people were from the UK (1200 ish) but I also had readers from USA, Canada, France, Russia and many others (Just over 20 different countries in total)! Sometimes it looked like my blog was being linked to from sites across the world which was quite exciting even if I couldn't track what they were saying about it!

What would I do differently if I could do it again? I think that posting more regularly would be a good idea, as it means that people would know when a post was going to arrive rather than it just appearing randomly! That was all part of the original plan, (unfortunately life got in the way) but it’s definitely something I’ll work harder on in the future. I also need to get more to grips with Twitter – I just never remember to post anything interesting I think of, so whilst it has been a good way to help publicise my blog most of my tweets are just shameless self promotion! However, in mildly exciting news, I did get featured in a collection of science Haikus submitted by twitter users to Popular Science which was quite exciting!

I’ve really enjoyed the experience overall and am definitely going to keep blogging. It’s a good space for me to collect my thoughts, and hopefully interest a few people along the way! If there’s anything you’d like to hear about let me know. I plan to carry on blogging about general life at university and any tips I have along the way, as well as blogging about Physics. The next year at university promises to be a lot more interesting for me, with bigger projects to complete and new things to learn about. I also plan to blog more about my life outside of Physics as apparently some of you find that interesting!

Thank you all for reading, it’s been lovely having you!

My next blog post will be on starting university - a daunting prospect for many! Whilst I know lots of people have already started on Freshers week I also know plenty more haven't, and I plan to cover time beyond freshers week too! If anyone who reads this has any questions please do let me know!

ThatPhysicsGirl on Holiday: Travels in Sardinia

Hello! Sorry this post is a little late, but whilst on holiday the wifi was intermittent to say the least! I’ve just got back, so thought it might be nice to offer a little account of my time abroad. I love to travel, I love to see new places and experience new things. My boyfriend and I had looked at going to one of the Greek Islands this year, but were worried by news of strikes which may have caused us problems. As such, we ended up looking across a range of different places in Europe and finally settled on Sardinia for its combination of stunning coastline and lovely mountainous interior. Plus both Ryanair and Easyjet do cheap flights there (which for a student is pretty important!). 

Alghero

Alghero is a large town on the North- Western coast of Sardinia. We flew in here (because the flights were cheapest :P) but ended up spending two nights here due to timings of flights and buses. It was actually really nice to have a look round as the city has some really interesting history (basically it got invaded a lot) and some really pretty parts to look round. There is a strong Catalan influence which gives it a nice character as several styles of architecture have all been used at one time or another. We went for a walk round the old town, and then wandered around the docks and along the sea front before we finally headed back for some well deserved pizza!

Cala Gonone

Cala Gonone was a small seaside fishing village, but thanks to better transport links with the rest of the island is being developed more and more into a tourist destination. We were lucky to go at the start of September, as school holidays were over but it wasn’t quite the end of the season, so we had the benefits that it wasn’t too crowded, but everything was still open. We had rented a nice little self catering apartment, approximately 200m from the seafront so a great location! The town has a few sandy-pebbly beaches within easy walking distance so we spent a good few days just relaxing (and reading lots of books!). But the town is also a good centre for trying lots of other activities, so in later days we ventured further afield!

Nuraghe Mannu

Almost every other person that goes to Sardinia will have a car. We were looking to keep costs down and used public transport during our stay there, which rather shocked the lady in the tourist info! As a result, to get to this Megalithic structure (there are lots of Nuraghes in Sardinia) at the top of the cliff involved a fairly long walk up the hill back along the main road that leads into the town. I got the impression not many other tourists decide to walk up judging from the looks we were getting from passersby in their cars. Eventually we turned off the main road on to the dirt track leading to Nuraghe Mannu and arrived at the entrance gate. Unfortunately it was closing for lunch (everything closes at lunch time which is always inconvenient when you forget) but we managed to get in to have a quick look round. It was amazing how well preserved the structure was, considering it was from the Nuragic era (1900-730BCE), however to us we had to admit it did just look rather like a pile of rocks. A very nice pile of rocks, but a pile of rocks none the less. However the view from the top was excellent, we could see around the entire bay, along the coastline to places we were going to visit only the next day.

Boat trip

Having done extensive research before leaving, I’d read that everyone says that you absolutely must get a boat along the coast. Having explored the various options (water taxis that just drop you off, mini cruises that take you along for the day and hiring your own) we decided to hire our own boat. Whilst it was the most expensive option, it was definitely worth it. You went along to the port, had a nice chat with all the people sitting in their beach huts and got the best price for hire. The next morning you’d come back, pick up your included parasol and ice box and go and get your boat. After an incredibly brief introduction to how to actually use a motor boat you were just allowed to set off along the coast. It was incredible being able to speed along looking at the stunning coastline. All of the beaches are really nice, white pebbles/sand and clear turquoise and deep blue water. Most of them are not easily accessible from the land, meaning that getting a boat is really the only way to see them. The most incredible was Cala Goloritze, a UNESCO world heritage site, with its amazing limestone towers jutting out over the beach. The water was also really as blue as it looks in photos! After a swim (just anchor the boat and jump really) we headed off down the coast. We stopped at Cala Mariolu for lunch, which involved the process of running the boat close to the beach, pulling out the engine (so it doesn’t get damaged on the bottom), dropping one person off on the beach with all the stuff while the other goes back out, anchors the boat past the line of buoys and then has to swim in. Oh and they might have to battle with other peoples anchors getting stuck round their propeller and then help very nice, but slightly incompetent Dutch tourists who’ve managed to really get themselves stuck. It was fine for me though – I was the one left on the beach! The whole day was wonderful, boating, sitting on amazing beaches, swimming with the fish… all in all a great experience and one I’d really recommend. Getting your own boat means you have the freedom to do what you want, when you want which for us was great!

Gorroppu Gorge

On our final day we managed to book on to an excursion to the Gorroppu gorge. If you have your own car you can drive there and do the walk yourselves, however as we didn’t have a car we didn’t have that option. In the end though it turned out to be such fantastic value getting a guide that I think it is probably the best option! We were picked up from our accommodation in the morning and driven to the gorge with another couple on the same trip. The trips are set up for 8 people and we only had 4 so our experience was great! After a brilliant, adrenaline filled ascent up the mountain along really steep, loose rock tracks in the 4x4 (over some impressive drops) we started our hike down into the gorge. Our guide Francesco was brilliant and told us lots about the flora, fauna and geography of the area in slightly broken English (but it was lots of fun to work out words that he couldn’t remember). On entering the gorge we started the 1km odd stretch that tourists are allowed to walk along, scrambling over huge boulders worn smooth by the river that appears in winter. It was lots of fun and having a guide was great as he knew the best route along so could show us the easiest ways to get over obstacles, as well as other fun bits like a couple of natural slides. The gorge itself is gorgeous (see what I did there ;)) – it is known as the European Grand Canyon and it was easy to see why. Walls up to 400m on either side, the gorge itself ranged from 10-50m in width. Eventually we got to the point where only people with ropes and climbing gear are allowed further, so whilst we were disappointed we couldn’t have any more fun scrambling over bigger rocks we’d seen a lot already. It was then back along the gorge and up the hill to where our guide was preparing us the lunch that was included which was lovely. Typical Sardinian fresh bread, soft cheese made from sheep milk, hard cheese (somewhere between cheddar and parmesan) and local sausage, as well as a small amount of local red wine. All in all a fantastic day and an excellent experience!

Those were the main things we got up to whilst in Sardinia. It was such a nice holiday and really let me relax, which after the rest of the summer I’d had was well needed! Now on to planning the next trip!


A few links:
Our B&B in Alghero: Good location, well priced, lovely hosts, nice room, amazing breakfast.
Really Good Pizza in Algerho: V. cheap, really nice pizza
Apartment in Cala Gonone: Great location, excellent value, lovely host, well equipped.
Ghivine Tour Company for Gorroppu: Really excellent company, such a good day!