Claire - Level Four Physics 2011
Having just finished my
4th year here at St Andrews, it’s strange to look back on
the last 4 years and wonder - where has the time gone?! It seems
only yesterday I was being shown around this fantastic department,
full of friendly faces, with a thought slowly emerging that there
was only one clear choice for me - St Andrews. With its gorgeous
scenery and fantastic department, the last 4 years have been an
absolute blast - I’ve enjoyed every minute!
Since arriving here, I’ve had the opportunity to gain many
skills through my involvement in science outreach, student representation
and various other activities. If you are worried there won’t
be anything for you to get involved in here in St Andrews - think
again! From working with local primary school kids programming Lego
Mindstorm Robots, to building electronic bagpipes with children
of all ages in the department - the opportunities have been endless,
and they have certainly kept me busy!
Last year, students in the School elected me to the position of
School President. My job involved chairing the Student Staff Council
and working with class representatives and lecturers to ensure the
needs of students in the School were addressed at the appropriate
level. This role gave me a fantastic opportunity to gain a whole
new range of skills, from public speaking to project management.
It allowed me to gain a unique insight into the working of the School,
as well a number of essential skills that should stand me in good
stead for entering the graduate job market.
As well as getting involved throughout the semester, there’s
plenty of opportunity to get involved with ‘real’ research
in the summer months. Last summer I completed a project with the
Photonics Innovation Centre optimizing a Raman laser radar system.
It was a fantastic experience to be allowed to do proper research
as part of one of the research groups, allowing me to not only gain
on the job experience of operating an optics bench but experience
that would really help my academic studies in the coming session.
This summer I am spending
ten weeks doing a research internship with the mm-wave group. I
am working on developing a national facility for electron-spin-resonance
spectroscopy that works with millimetre-wavelength electromagnetic
waves. I am shown with the instrument at the top of this piece,
adjusting the mm-wave polariser through which the beam passes on
its way to and from the sample in the cryostat in front of me. My
work is on the use of new regimes of pulsing in order to improve
the signals in pulsed Electron Paramagnetic Resonance (EPR) experiments.
But really, I think the 4 years here can be summed up pretty well
in the picture below. This was taken on our last day of classes
at the end of 4th year. It includes some of the brilliantly interesting
people from all corners of the world who became my friends over
4 years. We've had a fantastic time here at St Andrews, with hard
work balanced by all sorts of other fun activities.
