Undergraduate Days Part 1

I recently got back in touch with a friend that I haven't seen since high school (the wonders of Facebook...) and we've been catching up. She's had a tough time since we left school, but then again I suppose we've all struggled a bit to find where we want to be in life. I was educated at a state high school just outside Manchester from 11-16 and to be honest it wasn't the best experience. Most of the staff was great and I got particularly involved in lots of music activities (choir, band etc.) but the area was pretty poor and most people didn't think they'd get very far in life. My friends seem to have done pretty well for themselves (becoming police officers, chefs and university graduates) but the thought of doing a PhD was so far from our minds during high school that we didn't even think about it long enough to think that it wasn't really a possibility. I've always love Physics so I've just sort of carried on with it. I used to think someone would stop me one day and say 'this isn't really for you' but they haven't yet so I'll just keep enjoying myself.

With all the meandering down memory lane I've been reminiscing university stories to catch my high school friend up, so I thought I'd share a few with you. So here you are: two snapshots of the best and worst times I had a university. I’ll start with the more dramatic (and therefore the best story to my mind) but my next post will be a lot more cheery I promise. If you have a favourite story from your time at university why not leave a comment...

1) Snow/Ice Balls

Equipped for real snow in
Kiruna, Sweden.

It's 5pm on Friday afternoon on the last day of term before the Christmas holidays, and I'm in a lecture theatre. We've been waiting around for the past hour for this particular gem of a lecture and half my year has decided to go to the union bar during this time. It's been snowing for the last couple of days and no one (not even the lecturer) wants to be here. The rest of the department have gone home – it’s just me, my (slightly drunk) year group and a very bored (very new) lecturer. All I want to do is get all the notes written down (I’m far to tired to actually take anything into my brain at this point) but my year has other ideas. Some of the students sat at the back of the lecture theatre have brought some snow in with them. They then decide it would be a really good idea to throw snowballs at those students sat at the front of the lecture theatre. Now I’m sure this was all done as a joke, and if we were all outside I wouldn’t have minded. I admit I was in a bit of a bad mood because I just didn’t want to be there anyway, but honestly I’m not usually that dull.

The fact is I was sat in a lecture theatre with all my carefully handwritten notes and fat, wet snow/ice balls were landing all around me. My notes were getting wet and the ink was starting to run. The throwers were of course careful only to do it when the lecturers back was turned, which wasn’t difficult as he spent most of the lecture writing on the blackboard, but I couldn’t stand it any more. With my blood boiling I stood up in front of the 100 or so people in the lecture theatre, apologised to the lecturer and turning to the culprits sat on the back row said loudly, ‘Get out please’. To this day I do not know why I chose those words - it really doesn't make sense. An odd mixture between rage and antiquated politeness.

The people on the back row seemed amused. I explained what was going on to the lecturer and he tried to reason with the guilty parties so we could all just finish the lecture and get out of there. I tried to reason with the people sat around me – they were all just as annoyed but hadn’t said anything. A couple of people stood up and agreed with me but everyone else got a little bit lower in their seats. When the lecturer continued with his material the snowballs resumed, but this time they were aimed squarely at me. There was only ten minutes left so I pulled my coat around myself and my work and resolved to get out of there as quickly as possible.

After the lecture my friend told me I was stupid for making myself (and her – she was sat next to me and their aim wasn't that great) a target. Others said well done, they were glad someone had said something – even if it didn’t make much difference. My notes were just about readable, but I did have to write them out again without the water stains to stop myself getting angry when I was revising. I’m sure there’s a lesson in there somewhere, but please don't think I'm still bitter about it now. I just like a good story.

How to get a PhD: Part 2

A few more things every applicant should know about the PhD process…

Usually a university offers a range of PhD's in different subjects but don't be fooled into thinking they can afford all of them. Usually a large group can manage 2, 3 or 4 fully funded PhD places per year (depending on their previous successes) so if they don't have good enough candidates they don't make offers. Also, don't be afraid to ask for a different PhD topic if you're interested and know your potential supervisors have the relevant experience- my PhD wasn't offered on the website. You shouldn't be afraid to ask your Masters supervisors for help with finding out what's on offer either and if they put in a good word for you at the same time - all the better!

Once you've decided what you want to do and where you want to do it you have to fill in your application. It's usually a good idea to do this over the Christmas holidays of the year you intend to start your PhD the following September/October. It's worth taking a bit of time to fill in the application form properly, but mostly you need to worry that your CV is up to date and your personal statement highlights your enthusiasm for your subject as well as proof that you have the required skills to complete a PhD. You know the kind of thing: teamwork, time management etc. but try and tailor it to match specific skills you will need for the PhD you are applying for e.g. experience of relevant programming languages. You will also need references for your application, so make sure you have good relationships with some academics at your current university so your potential employer knows you can happily work with other people. You can get 100% in your Masters degree but if you can’t work well with others no one will offer you a PhD.

You've submitted your application and they've called you for an interview. Congratulations! Typically a panel of your potential supervisors and an external member of staff (who will check your general scientific ability) will interview you. Expect to discuss your Masters project in detail and prove you have some idea about what you intend for your future career. There are no right answers here. Usually saying 'I want to be a professor' will just make you come across as naive if you're not passionate about it, as most PhD students don't go on to be academics.

I’ve always found interviews to be a bit nerve-wracking, but it’s very important to meet your potential employer and find out where you would be working. Try not to forget that you're interviewing them too. You need to make sure you'll be able to work with your potential supervisors and that you feel comfortable working in your chosen lab/office. I’ve heard stories of interviews where the candidates have been treated so badly those that have offered the place haven’t accepted it – and so have your interviewers!  If they want you to work for them (and don’t want someone willing to work themselves into an early grave – which should definitely not be you!) they will be understanding and make you feel welcome. That said, don’t expect that they won’t ask you any difficult questions – they will. You won’t know the answers sometimes – this is allowed. In the case of a PhD interview they are usually checking that you’re ok with not knowing the answers, as this is what a PhD is all about. You will spend a lot of your time not knowing the answer to some burning question and you’d better be ok with that!

You've been offered a PhD! Wow! Oh. Now you've been offered another one. They both want you to make a decision. Oh dear - didn't think of that. Whatever your reasons and whatever your decision be sure you don't leave it too long. Typically you get a few weeks to decide but while your feeling pleased with yourself someone else is waiting to hear whether they've got a place or not.

Apologies to those of you who know all this already - I just always wished that someone had told me before I got involved in all of this!

How to get a PhD: Part 1

Talk at this time of year always seems to turn to what you're going to do next. It's a bit late to be applying for a funded PhD place now but I thought you might like to know the kind of thing to expect if you choose to apply.

Interviews are all finished at MSSL now for the fully funded places. I don't know how it works for other subjects but this is how it worked for science when I applied. It's probably a bit different now but the same principles apply.

First of all you need a Masters (MSc or MSci) to do a PhD in the UK. This can be a bit tricky if your university only offers the Bachelors and you're a UK student, as you can't get a student loan for a stand alone Masters course (that's why most people choose to do an integrated Masters (MSci)). There's one caveat now that you can get on a DTC (Doctoral Training Centre) course, which is kind of a Masters tacked onto a PhD. It has the advantage that you effectively get paid to do the Masters, but they're aren't DTC's in every subject as they tend to be linked to a specific industry. Currently there is no DTC in space physics so this wasn't really an option for me. If you like simulating materials, condensed matter or plastic electronics this might be the best decision for you.

That's the complicated part over. Stay with me...

If you're on target for a 80% in your Master's degree you can expect to get snapped up quickly for a funded PhD with a research council, assuming you can get on with your potential supervisor. That means they will pay both your living costs to you (called a Stipend) and your fees directly to your university. Let me be completely clear here - this is not a loan, you will not have to pay it back! :)

If you're on target for 70% in your Masters you can expect to get an interview for your PhD and fight your corner a little but if you show enough promise you can expect to get a fully funded place. At 60% you'll find it a bit harder. 60% is the cutoff for a fully funded place and most universities won't give you a PhD if you might not make the grade. Less than 60% and you don't meet the  criteria to get a fully funded PhD place so unless you can afford to pay for the PhD yourself (or pay for another Masters (to get a higher grade)) you should probably look at something else. To be honest if you get less than 60% you will probably not enjoy completing a PhD. You have to be sure it's what you want to do - three years is a long time to do a PhD if it makes you miserable.

Once you've got the right qualifications you need to decide where to apply. If you have a specific topic in mind for your PhD you will need to find which university departments have published papers in this field recently. Bear in mind that there is no such thing as a 'general PhD'. If you can't choose one topic you will be happy to look at for the next three years then this probably isn't for you. Also, don't be swayed by the reputation of the university, it's the reputation of your potential supervisor that's important. The experience you have as a PhD student in my experience depends entirely on your supervisor but again there are a few things to consider. If you choose a senior member of the department you will probably find it very difficult to get close supervision but they'll have more contacts in your field, more experience and more credibility. On the other hand if your supervisor is new to the job they will probably have more time for you, but if they're still trying to prove themselves to their supervisors so the situation can get a little tricky for you.

To be continued…

Comic book strip from www.phdcomics.com

On Probation

Before I stress the Ogden Trust out too much let me first say that I haven't been arrested, this post isn't about that kind of probation. When you are given a PhD place funded by a research council (STFC in my case) they don't agree to fund you for three years straight away. Your first year is a 'probationary period' where you are expected to prove that you have the ability to produce useful research and can finish your PhD in a timely fashion. You work for the PhD but if your performance is unsatisfactory in your first year there are procedures in place to allow you to graduate at the end of your first year with just an MPhil (Master of Philosophy) qualification. No pressure!

Most universities have procedures in place so that you aren't left confused for a long periods of time with no formal meeting to allow you to raise your concerns. For MSSL this takes place in a series of panel meetings (as I've already talked about a little in a previous post). My next panel meeting is one of the most serious. At it I have to present the work I've done so far and make the case for continuing on my PhD.

I have been very stressed for the past couple of weeks at MSSL because I've been working on my 9 month probation report that has to be handed in before this meeting. In the meeting I will have to give a short presentation based around the topics covered in my report. Then there will be a general discussion about my progress and how I feel everything is going. The report is due in exactly a month but I'd started early as I really wanted to impress. 

My code is bug free now so while it's running I have lots of time for reading papers and writing insightful narratives about the history of my field. That was the idea. In reality the writing of my 'Magnum Opus' has so far involved my staring blankly at computer screens and incomprehensible scientific gibberish. I understand my field. I think. Just don't ask me to explain anything because I'll say that I don't really understand it all that well - by which i mean that I don't yet understand it better than my supervisor or all the other people that have been working on this stuff for longer than I've been alive. It's very difficult to be so inexperienced sometimes. I'm trying to be intelligent! It's just that my brain translates everything into ideas that I can understand and when I write that down it only sounds vaguely scientific and definitely not impressive. 

I have to keep reminding myself that this is not my thesis. I have an awful lot to say but it is not physically possible to fit everything I know about comets (science-y or not) into 10-20 pages, which is all I'm allowed for this specific piece of work.

The Trevi Fountain in Rome, from my parents holiday photos.
So jealous!

On top of all this stressing my car broke down last week. It only had a flat tyre but I had no idea how to change it for the spare in the boot. My very kind office-mate helped me change it (by which i mean he did most of the hard work and I stood by looking helpless and apologising) but then I had no idea where to get a new tyre or how to get it fitted. I didn't even have a clue how much a tyre should cost (usually between £50-£80 for a reasonably good one for those equally clueless)! I'm ashamed to say that usually my Dad takes care of all these things, but with him being on holiday in Italy for two weeks there wasn't much chance of my contacting him. There also wasn't much point in my calling my usual family garage - as it is 300 miles away! My boyfriend is less than helpful when it comes to anything to do with the car - partly because he's a very 'theoretical' physicist and partly because he's only just started taking driving lessons again, so I was pretty much on my own. In the end I found a garage that would fit a tyre for me. The guy was so nice and made sure that I oil and water were OK too before he let me drive off. I have no idea whether he did a good job or not but the car goes quite happily now and the tyre hasn't yet fell off! I'll keep you posted!

Wish me luck with my probation report! I think I'll be tacking this particular beast for quite a while now... of course rumours abound that some in my year have already finished it!

The Magic of Science

Me outside the entrance...

Last Friday was my 23rd birthday. To celebrate the week before I went to visit the Harry Potter Studio tour, just outside London. My boyfriend had bought the tickets for Christmas but we'd been so busy that this was the first weekend we could comfortably fit it in.

I'm a big Harry Potter fan. I read all the books when they first came out and dragged either my boyfriend or my family to watch all of the films. I always felt like I kind of grew up with the characters, as they were always about my age when the books came out. I'm a bit of a geek - you might have noticed. Only when it comes to Harry Potter, Stargate, Firefly and Star Trek. That felt like a confession! Moving on…

Real slithering snake door (they
wouldn't let me press the button :( )

The Harry Potter studio tour was amazing. You get to go around lots of different sets and see how they made everything look so real. The biggest surprise for me was that most of it was real. A lot of the props look so amazing because instead of being designed on a computer they'd taken the time, effort and money to actually make the movements you'd expect. For example in one of the sets (The Weasley's kitchen for fellow nerds) there is a pot and scrubbing brush in the sink that washes itself. In the tour you can press a button to make it work. It’s all done with electric motors and clever counterweight systems! They’d also taken the trouble to hand make hundreds of prophesy orbs and that were never used in the end because they decided the computer generated graphics were better. The things you can do if you have enough money! The slithering snake door in the chamber of secrets and the magic door at Gringots that clicks open with a thousand tiny levers were both real too. The crew had actually taken the time to work out how to build each intricate piece and then fit it together so carefully that every cog and lever clicked seamlessly into place. The Goblet of Fire was also carved from a single piece of wood!

Of course a lot of what was seen in the movies was computer generated, using clever tricks like green/blue screens and false perspectives to fool our senses. Our world obeys physical laws so all computer generate graphics have to as well to be able to trick our eyes.

Huge animatronic spider
that took over 100 people to operate!

Put the fact that people can’t fly riding around on broomsticks to one side for the moment. If Harry Potter was whizzing around and flew to the left while his cloak flew to the right you wouldn’t believe it, because the centrifugal force* you know and love doesn’t work like that. Maybe he had a magic cloak that makes the centrifugal force acting on it result in a ‘magic force’ that acts in the opposite direction, but somehow this seems more unbelievable than the broomstick-flying in the first place.

Basically film makers have to be very careful about not breaking the laws of physics when they are creating even fantastical worlds, so they use clever computational 'physics engines' to keep track of things like gravity and centrifugal force.

The week after we went the royal visit took place and the Warner Brothers Harry Potter Studio Tour London was opened officially. I would highly recommend it to any Harry Potter fans or fans of the magic of cinema in general, but if you get to go just remember: all magic is just clever scientific trickery!

Animatronic Buckbeak (he actually bowed!)

*Centrifugal force is a real force. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. It is a consequence of your sitting in a moving reference frame so technically is a pseudo-force, but so is magnetism and you wouldn’t say that didn’t exist would you? A magnetic field is caused by the motion of electrically charged particles. That’s why you can’t have a magnetic monopole in a normal situation because if charges move from one place to another they can’t disappear.

My First PhD talk

On Friday I gave the first professional talk of my PhD. I'd been worrying about it for quite a while, especially as I thought it was rather early in my PhD to be presenting my research. My boyfriend is half way through his second year and he still hasn't given a professional talk yet. I suppose it depends on what kind of research you're doing. He has spent most of his time so far developing code so he is only just starting to get results that he can present.

My first talk was to be given at the RAS (Royal Astronomical Society). My supervisor had persuaded me to do it, as he was organizing the meeting and wanted to present the work of some of his students. It would be my first chance to meet the members of the cometary physics community in the UK and I was anxious to make the right impression.

The RAS's crest, it reads 'Whatever
shines should be observed'

The week leading up to the meeting I was very worried. My supervisor was at a conference in Germany and although he had seen the slides for the first draft of my presentation, he hadn't had time to run through it with me. The day before I was due to give the talk my office mate persuaded me to present it to some of the other students at the lab (and then persuaded them to listen to it).

I'm usually quite shy but for some reason when I have to give a presentation I get overwhelmed with nervous energy. It probably means I'm in the right line of work. I have lots of ideas and lots of enthusiasm but if I don't direct it carefully I can end up in an explanation cul-de-sac. Luckily this nervous energy had kicked in a day early and when I gave my talk to the other students it didn't seem like a complete disaster. I did talk too fast (I always seem to during presentations) and I'm sure I did a thousand other things wrong, but they understood what I was trying to say and I was pleased with their feedback. It's certainly a lot less intimidating to practice with a group of your fellow students than with more senior members of academic staff.

The evening before the meeting I went to the cinema with my boyfriend to watch the new version of Les Miserables. I never liked waiting in the night before an exam (and to be honest it felt like an exam, I had visions of people interrupting me in the middle of my presentation with phrases like 'well that's not quite right now is it???'), so I decided to be proactive. The film was pretty good and turned out to be an excellent distraction.

The WHT, part of the ING
at La Palma

The morning of the meeting I couldn't eat anything and was thoroughly getting on my boyfriend's nerves verbalizing all of my worries. I'd arranged to meet my supervisor and his other PhD student at the RAS an hour before the meeting was due to start. My supervisor's other PhD student was 2 years into his studies before he left to work on/play with telescopes at the Isaac Newton Group (ING) based in La Palma, Canary Islands. He was just as nervous as me, even though it was his second time giving a presentation at the RAS - possibly because he didn't seem to think the first one had gone well.

The meeting was organised to facilitate discussion of the science of near-Sun comets. Prior to the discussion I had assumed that near-Sun comets would naturally be the brightest comets observable (as it's the Sun's radiation that causes comet tails, and if you're closer to the Sun there's a lot more radiation). In reality many near-Sun comets are so small that they are very difficult to detect, and consequently fail to survive their precarious trip through the Sun's atmosphere. I found all the talks very interesting and greatly enjoyed seeing the other aspects of cometary science being studied. Everyone seemed very excited about the next big comet: ISON. Predicted to reach perihelion (the closest approach to the Sun) around Christmas 2013, it had been suggested (rather tentatively, as comets tend to be very unpredictable) that ISON will be a very bright comet and provide scientists with both interesting data and an opportunity to get the general public involved.

The RAS meeting room - this was full when
I presented my work from the podium!

When it came time for me to present my talk I was very nervous. I had practiced my opening lines several times to make sure I didn't miss out anything, for instance that I was a first year (please be nice to me...) and that I'd got a lot of my images from my supervisor's collaborators. Once I'd started it didn't seem so bad and to be honest I can't remember a lot of what I said. I don't think I came across as very professional but all the cometary people were very encouraging. I think I just need more practice, especially in a professional setting (the RAS's HUGE projector screen was very intimidating when I stood next to it - it was about 3 times my height).  I got lots of nice questions after I'd presented (they were really interested in my research!), and everyone from my group at MSSL said that I'd done well.

After the discussion I went for dinner with my boyfriend, my supervisor and some of the speakers from the meeting. I soon found myself laughing and discussing the merits of Japanese food with the very people I'd found so intimidating two hours before. So, although I was very worried about the whole meeting/discussion/dinner I had rather a nice time. Not Les Miserables at all...

Panel Meetings

It's been a while since I wrote last. Hopefully this post will explain why, at least in part. Before I start I just want to say a big thank you to Isla and everyone at the Ogden trust for a lovely lunch and of course my shiny new toy, which I am now writing this post on.

So what have I been up to all this time? Well, at MSSL they have a very important system in place to make sure all PhD students are progressing as they should be: panel meetings. Basically if anything is going wrong with your PhD - everything from you not doing enough work to your supervisor not being around enough- this is the way it gets sorted out. It's a great system that will hopefully mean that I finish my PhD before my funding runs out, but that doesn't mean that I wasn't very very nervous for my first panel meeting.

My Beautiful Simulated Comet

At the start of your PhD you're supposed to be mainly reading around your subject area and learning to understand the language used (yes, technically all the papers are in English but most of the time it doesn't feel like it, especially when everything is new). However, as I knew the basics of space physics from my undergraduate degree I'd been spending most of my time learning my supervisor's chosen programming language (IDL) and making it produce beautiful plots (apparently saying 'graphs' isn't science-y enough any more). Well, they're beautiful to me anyway, but they can still elicit an 'ooo' from my office-mate so I figure I'm winning so far. Anyway, because of my pedestrian programming (not a bad thing - computers are very stupid) I hadn't done as much reading as I would have liked and in general felt that I wasn't prepared enough for this first meeting.

The basic outline of a panel meeting at MSSL is as follows. First the chair (the lead speaker at the meeting for those not into business speak- even scientists have to do it nowadays I'm afraid) talks about the purpose of the meeting and asks you and your supervisors how things are going in general. Then it's your turn. The student gives a presentation on the work that they have done so far and afterwards is questioned about any points that the chair thinks were unclear. If you have kind supervisors like I do, when you get stuck on an question they try and help you out. When that's over your supervisors have to leave so you can say terrible things about them confidentially to your chair. Unfortunately mine are lovely so I didn't get to do any of that. (I think it probably shows how uncomfortable I still am with this business-speak that I am now picturing myself standing up and talking to my chair directly. Never mind...) Finally you have to leave while they discuss your progress.

There aren't many people in the meeting, only your primary and secondary supervisors, someone to take minutes and the chair, who has to be someone outside your group. As I'm writing this my secondary supervisor has just appeared on the news talking about the new manned mission to Mars. It sounds really interesting. My secondary supervisor is the head of my group and is always pushing for us to raise the profile of the department. I suppose that's what he means.

Anyway, back to the panel meeting. Although the first meeting is supposed to be very informal, most of the first year students had started seriously worrying about it. Somehow being told many times that you have nothing to worry about has never managed to fill me with confidence. How you are supervised depends very much on who your supervisor is, and before my first panel meeting I'd heard a very worrying story about a first year being grilled so badly during her meeting that she'd had to spend the rest of the day in another meeting with her supervisor to sort everything out. The other first year PhD student in my group had gone through her presentation with her supervisor a few times and had managed to make me even more worried about mine!

My new office name plate. To be a physicist you have to have
a well developed sense of humour...

In the end everything went ok. I stumbled over a few of my explanations but I think they were impressed with everything I'd managed to achieve so far. My supervisor dropped me in it a bit asking me to show plots that I hadn't prepared (because I didn't think we're ready to be shown), but I suppose I've given them something to look forward to next time. I'd only shown them to him because I was making them when he came to my office (it's got my name on the door and everything!).