Graduating with a Physics degree, yay!

Many twenty-somethings have been celebrating recently, and I was no exception. This week, I am pleased to say I graduated with a First Class Physics degree from the University of Exeter. As well as doing the usual graduation stuff - throwing my hat in the air, swanning around in a black robe, hugging all my friends and family, and enjoying the campus for one last time, I took a moment to ponder what I'd learnt over my time at university.

Over the course of my Bachelor of Science degree, I have done 24 modules, in areas ranging from the quantum mechanics of tiny particles to the structure of vast galaxies. The final year was hands down my favourite, where I started to feel things I'd learnt in different topics began to link together. I won't deny that having honed my studying methods over my degree also helped, as by the end I was able to learn much more efficiently than when I first started. The consequence was that by the end I had gained a lot of confidence to plunge headfirst into physics problems and emerge triumphant with a correct solution, grinning like a labrador that has retrieved a ball from a river. As the years passed and the physics problems gained complexity, it was as if the ball was being thrown further and further, yet if anything I became more confident in my ability to swim out and get it back successfully. So aside from problem solving, confidence and general life skills, what are the nitty-gritty aspects of a physics degree?

Below are some of my favourite revision notes which should give a general idea.

First year comprised of the grounding basics of physics to lay the foundations for later. There was a lot of maths, starting with imaginary numbers, matrices and advanced trigonometry, then moving on to hyperbolic functions (like trigonometry but even more fun), series solutions and transformations. And calculus. A lot of calculus. Which made me grateful that my maths teacher at sixth form had made us do so much differentiation and integration practice. Having taken Further Maths to AS level at school, I was already familiar with a lot of the mathematics at the start of the physics degree, which gave me a slightly more gentle introduction than those who were learning these topics from scratch. Soon however we were on to new content, covering basic waves, optics, materials, vectors, mechanics, and even a dubiously named 'Introduction to Astrophysics' module, the first half of which seemed to be about nuclear and quantum physics before a star or planet was ever mentioned, and hence I think it should've been called 'Introduction to Physics' instead. Nonetheless, the first year did indeed form a foundation for the subsequent years.

Second year was the heaviest in terms of workload, with weekly problem sheets to complete that would take several hours each, as well as mid-term tests and lab reports, all of which counted as a fraction of our overall grades, with the majority of the grades from 2h exams. In the second year we covered more new ground: detailed quantum mechanics (one of my favourite topics), more astronomy, were we learnt about telescopes and new planets, electromagnetism (half electricity, half magnetism), thermal physics (lots of engines), condensed matter (crystal structures) and our final maths module (random jumble of everything).

The final year was where I was really in my element, delving into astrophysics through the 'Stars' module where we learnt about the birth, evolution, death, structure and energy of individual stars, as well as their environments through the subsequent 'Galaxies' module. My additional reading and internship experience on astrophysics from last summer really shone through in these topics where I was thrilled to be studying my favourite area of physics. Another final year favourite module was 'Nuclear & Particle Physics' where we learnt about the fundamental forces (gravitational, weak, strong, electromagnetism) and the glue that binds particles together (gluons - no I'm not making that up). A shiny new module was introduced for my cohort called Fluid Dynamics, where we touched on the behaviour of air around plane wings, atmospheres, and crazy (non-Newtonian) fluids like corn starch that appear soft when stirred but solid when hit hard with a spoon. Additionally we studied more electromagentism and quantum mechanics from a different angle as a combined module, for which I was gobsmacked to have achieved my record high exam grade at university of 85%, beating my nuclear and stars module exam results by one percent.

Our degree also comprised of laboratory work in each year, ranging from laser experiments to analysing data from stellar populations to calculate their age. Investigations that stood out in my memory included: finding the transit period of an exoplanet around a star using public NASA data, investigating ripples in a water tank and measuring the speed of a star's jet. Regardless of what physics graduates do next, there has got to be something special about a degree which allows you to investigate in a lab anything from the structural colour of a butterfly's wing to fluid flow around turbine blades. While I may be biased, I'm not sure there are any subjects as exciting as this one, which spans from experimental to theoretical studies on scales ranging from the subatomic to the size of the universe.

My one regret of the degree is that coding wasn't pushed earlier and further, given it is such a useful skill. The programming language we used was Python, a very versatile tool that does everything from basic number crunching and graph plotting to detailed analysis and mapping. We used it to plot our results in labs, and I even made a 2D model of the hydrogen atom with it. I have since tried to build on my coding knowledge and have used these skills in various internships, including to map the gas chemistry in a star forming molecular cloud, and to estimate which type of model makes a star most likely to explode. Outside of astrophysics, I have used Python to analyse data from the government's Environment Agency water sensors stationed across the south coast of England as part of a scheme to warn residents of flood risk.

Above: an electron density plot for the hydrogen atom that I made as part of my coding coursework. Different combinations of quantum numbers (which describe the position and energy of electrons in an atom) give different shapes of plot, and this is just one of several. The bright regions show areas of high probability for the electron's position, while the darker areas show low probability.

One thing that this degree had a lot of was exams, and the memories of my heart beating fast as I turned over my exam paper in a hall filled with rows and rows of other studious physicists is one that will stay with me. By the end, I was almost fond of the ritual of exams (mad I know), the suspense of weeks spent writing notes and solving problems coming to an exhilarating end with 2h of intense concentration with just a pencil, paper and ticking clock. In an age where so much seems to be digital or answers easily searched online, there was something pleasingly old-school about being in an indoor tennis court on a summer afternoon hunched over a physics paper with just your brain to guide you and a simple calculator for any numbers stuff, your hand sore from writing by the end and sheets covered in bits of rubber and pencil lead.

Studying for my physics degree has certainly been a positive (and occasionally challenging) experience, but I have come out knowing a lot more than I did when I went in so that's got to be a good thing. I can now code, solve problems more effectively, and have a broad foundation in all sorts of interesting physics that underpins everything from the gravity that keeps us from floating off in space to the semiconductor chips in our digital devices. Physicists go off to do manner of fascinating important stuff, working in industries like renewable energy, nuclear defence, patent law, geophysics, finance, medical physics and software engineering, and I know physicists heading off to do all these things!

So, what is next for this particular fresh-faced physics graduate? I'm excited to say I'll be heading to the University of Cambridge to delve deeper into astrophysics on a specialised masters course! While I'm aiming to work in physics industry in the future, I haven't satisfied my academic curiosity about stars and planets just yet, so am very much looking forward to learning more soon. In the meantime, I will be finishing my flood risk data analysis internship and enjoying a little summer holiday, interspersed with some sprinklings of physics! In the pipeline are some articles on wind turbines, my favourite planets in the solar system, and the cool physics behind convertible cars, although I may go rogue and throw in some other random posts too. Stay tuned...

Enjoying my graduation in the summer sunshine, and chance to wear a fancy hat and gown.