Well it’s my last day of work tomorrow. It has been a VERY
long summer – being a cleaner is a really tough job. It’s also a horrible job –
I think people would be amazed at the disgusting state hotel rooms are left in
and there’s only one person who’s going to clean it up – the poor old cleaner! However,
it has given me enough money to go on a nice holiday next week (I’m off to Sardinia !) and has given me some more motivation to get
back to my degree! It’s a tough truth, but working in a job like this does make
me want to work harder just so I hopefully wont have to do anything similar
again! It also makes you think about what you like most about your degree as
you look forward to not having to clean up other people’s bodily fluids, and so
I thought this would be a perfect time to let you know what have been my
favourite bits of my degree so far.
Good old first year textbook! If you're heading off to study Physics you may well find yourself with a copy! |
Every UK
physics degree has to fulfill criteria set out by the Institute of Physics ,
so every degree at every university will cover some common topics. These
include advanced mathematics, mechanics, thermodynamics, electromagnetism,
quantum physics, condensed matter physics, waves and optics and relativity. This
sounds like a lot, but having looked through the list I’ve covered all of these
in my first two years (I’ve got another two years to go which will be more
specialised). While different universities cover material at different speeds,
and some go into more detail than others it guarantees that every physics
graduate will have a certain level of knowledge about a wide range of core
physics topics. But which bits of these have I enjoyed the most?
Quantum Physics
This has definitely been one of my favourite parts of the
course. Not only is it mind bending and really exciting, with each new year it
becomes cooler. At school I would always say “Oh yes, I’m really interested in
quantum”. Little did I know. Literally. At school, you basically learn about
some funny particles with weird names and some concepts that sound pretty cool.
It’s when you get to university and get to see WHY it works that it becomes
much more amazing. The maths is really pretty, the fact it all works when you
apply it both to the micro and macro scales and because it is just so often so
impossible to understand (well in a sense that you can’t really imagine it) but
you can see that it does work makes it a really FANTASTIC topic to study!
How cool does this look! It's such a lovely equation! :D |
Mechanics
This was the very first topic I studied at university, and
what a wake up it was for me. As a result of not having studied Further Maths
at school, I’d never done any of the mechanics maths modules. I’d only studied
topics like vectors and calculus as fairly abstract topics in maths, so
discovering they were so important in physics was actually quite a big jump for
me. I’m not ashamed to say that I found this topic really challenging either. Most
other people had more experience than me so I had to work really hard. But it
paid off and actually was really rewarding for me as I felt like I was getting
somewhere straight away. My tutor was also fantastic, and I’ll always be
grateful to her for convincing me that I wasn’t completely stupid or out of my
depth!
The random, generic 'bodies' that you use in mechanics quickly became known as potatoes... |
Labs
I really love practical work – I always have. I love actually
doing stuff myself and over the years I’ve had the opportunity to do some
pretty cool stuff. First year labs weren’t always the most interesting tasks,
however as we gained the skills required to become more independent the tasks we
were given became much better. At the end of my first year I got to do a week
long project using X rays to determine the composition of British Coins – we even
got to use super strong acids to remove the outer coatings to determine the
compositions of the cores (1p,2p and 5p all have steel cores now as otherwise
the metal they are made of would be worth more than the coin. As such, not all
coins are magnetic) and got to prove which pound coin out of a selection was
fake. It's also meant I am full of a wealth of fairly dull information about British coins! My second year long project was also really good – over 6 weeks we got to
write programmes in python and use telescopes with digital cameras attached to
determine the temperature of sunspots. Next year I’ve got another long project
to come, I don’t know the exact topic yet but it will probably fall within the
Nuclear Physics category. Exciting times!
Believe it or not this is the sun! (And I took the photo!) |
I think these three topics have been the most notable parts for me so far, but I
am very excited to continue with my degree and find out more stuff. The great
thing about a physics degree though is that it is usually pretty interesting,
and there are some real WOW moments. When we managed to find the speed of light
using Maxwell’s equations (which link electricity and magnetism), when we first
learnt about relativity, when we saw how cool maths could really be, when we
spent some amazing hours watching beautiful ‘fly throughs’ of galaxies… they’re
moments that make the degree really worth it. And well it’s much better than
cleaning!
First year coin project - I spent rather a long time cleaning coins for this project! |