Careers
Miss Kwan Cheung
Age: 19
Course Title: MSci Physics
University: University College London (UCL)
Have you ever wondered why the sky is blue; why the universe appears the same in every direction you look; how light behaves as a wave and a particle at the same time; what makes up protons and neutrons that constitute the nucleus of an atom that had once been thought to be the smallest possible unit; and why the world is the way it is now?
It was these questions that made me decide to put Physics down on my UCAS form. My offers usually required A-Level Mathematics in addition to Physics plus another subject other than General Studies.
After months of hard work, I am now at University College London doing Physics. In these one and a half terms, I have found that, at degree level, all the topics covered at A-Level are explored at even greater depth. The limits on the scales concerned extend: at the upper end, we go beyond our own solar system to explore other galaxies; at the lower end, atoms are not as fundamental as they had once been thought to be, since quarks are now the most basic building blocks discovered so far. On the time scale, we go way back to the beginning of time, at the big bang, and beyond as we try to find out what happened before that.
The Physics course at UCL is very challenging. There is lots of material covered in the first year: quantum mechanics, astronomy, thermal physics, electromagnetism and so on. A good foundation of mathematics is very helpful. The course consists of a number of lectures, tutorials and laboratory sessions. In a tutorial, there is usually one tutor to every four students, which ensures that each student gets the attention they need. In the laboratory sessions, students work in pairs to carry out various experiments. There are technicians and demonstrators in the laboratory who are able to provide immediate assistance with any problem that arises during an experiment. Some of the experiments are related to the core courses, and by undertaking them, one can improve understanding of the underlying theories.
With such a varied programme, there are lots of opportunities to develop various skills, such as communication, teamwork, problem solving and computer literacy, which are the key skills employers nowadays are looking for from the ideal candidate for any job. Graduates with a Physics degree go into many different fields. An increasing number of graduates decide to go into research: although a lot has already been discovered by numerous great scientists, there are many phenomena that cannot be explained by the current laws. Other graduates go into engineering, teaching, banking, accountancy, etc etc, and it is not unheard of for physics graduates to go into advertising and design! It is not surprising that this is possible since during a Physics degree, students develop many transferable skills that many graduates with other degrees cannot offer.
With so much going for Physics, did I have any excuse not to choose it?
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