Finishing the fourth-year project
Central to the final year of the integrated masters is the fourth-year project, taking up half of all allocated module time and culminating in a project report (which I gave some advice on writing here). After months of working in the laser lab, running hundreds of simulations, and 24,600 words I’m pleased to say last […]
Convergence failures and hidden electronic states: the world of computational chemistry
With just over a week before 4th year project reports are due in for Natural Sciences, everyone’s quietly busying away attempting to tie everything together. My project has been half computational and half experimental, and although much of my effort is now in writing up I can’t convince myself to stop running simulations to try […]
Rounding off the end of term and the Natural Sciences Newsletter
As 5pm came around students from all years of the degree gathered at the nearest pub in the tradition of celebrating the end of second term exams, and although fourth years are no longer subjected to such things it was still apt as a send off for Easter! The week also saw the end of […]
Looming deadlines
There’s now just three weeks left of term and everyone’s pushing to get the results they need to write up their project reports. Those in third year are in dedicated project time, and both years are now split into groups of similar topics to present their work each week in project seminars. These are great […]
Writing a project report
One of the most important pieces of work on the natural sciences course in both third and fourth year is the report detailing your research project done throughout the year. Moving from five-week long module deliverables to such a large piece of work felt pretty daunting to me, and considering nearly every waking moment in fourth […]
Numerical methods, argon plasma and planning for the future
The second term is now well underway and it already feels considerably different to before Christmas. With microcontrollers soldered beyond recognition and the report handed in, the fourth year programming module now focuses on numerical methods, which are used to approximate solutions to functions that can’t be solved exactly. One of the best-known examples of […]
Preparing for Next Term
As the end of term is fast approaching, I’ve been spending every available moment in the lab trying to finalise things before Christmas. Due to the nature of my project, the equipment we’re using takes a considerable amount of time to optimise for what we’re trying to achieve, and this isn’t always easy! However, now […]
The World of Research
Something that’s becoming increasingly apparent is just how much the fourth year is geared towards preparation for the world of research. Every other week fourth year natural sciences students present their progress in project seminars, where peers and staff discuss what direction to head in next. This can be really useful in giving points of […]
Interdisciplinary Science Society Events and Time Management
The I-Science Society kicked things off in style with a society meal at their new sponsor, boasting food from all over the world. It was a great chance to properly meet those just starting the degree, along with everyone else that have long been a part of it. It’s funny how a small department means […]
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