Final year projects

Honours students in the School normally undertake an individual project in their final year. The information below is associated primarily with AS and PH projects: in some cases joint-degree students will take a project or similar module in their other School.

All penultimate year students are encouraged to attend the project poster session held late in Semester 2 to see what sorts of things may be explored in final year projects.

A list of possible projects available in this School, giving details of references and suggested programmes, is provided part way through Semester 1. Each project, which may combine the elements of a review, research, and development in varying proportions, is carried out under the supervision of a member of academic staff and leads to the presentation of a written report.

As part of the assessment of the project, each student is required to give a brief presentation on the results of the project and to answer questions put by members of staff.

Although all projects are two-semesters long, most of the work is normally carried out in Semester 2. A short pre-project report is required from all project students early in Semester 2, and this can serve as a useful background for planning the research. The final project reports are due towards the end of Semester 2, as detailed in the separate project documentation. Most MPhys students have the project as their only module in Semester 2, allowing a complete immersion in the research experience.

On several occasions a project has led to the publication of a paper in a research journal, providing an especially valuable point for inclusion in references for scholarships and employment. The School offers prizes for the best projects.

All research in all Schools of the University that involves data collection (from questionnaires etc), interviews of, interactive investigation of, experimentation upon or demonstrations involving living human subjects, tissues and / or other samples requires formal approval from the University Teaching and Research Ethics Committee (UTREC).

Any project that requires ethical approval from UTREC must have the letter or email of ethical approval bound into the appendix before submission. Including unapproved data in any assessment is a breach of the Research Misconduct Policy.

 
Projects in physics, astrophysics and theoretical physics

All final year single-Honours students undertake a project selected from a list of topics suggested by supervising staff. Suggestions from students themselves are welcomed. Projects usually involve original investigations, often undertaken in one of the research groups and sometimes involving collaboration with industrial firms. There are separate project modules for Physics, Astrophysics and Theoretical Physics programmes, although the core organisational aspects are the same.

 
Projects for students on joint-Honours degrees

Students in a joint-Honours programme will choose to do a project in this School or in the School of their other subject. If choosing a project in this School, we would welcome suggestions for contribution to the supervision from the other school.

Students in joint programmes are encouraged to speak with relevant staff in both schools about this choice. This is important as project choices are released at different times by different schools.