Alex's Work Experience Blog

This is my blog about my time doing work experience at Southampton University Physics and Astronomy department. My name is Alex Stewart and I have been working with Pearl John and Sadie Jones of the outreach office of the Physics and Astronomy department. I am a fiveteen year old GCSE student who has a passion for maths amd science. Hence why I asked for work experience at the physics and astronomy department.

I have had some great times at my work experience but I cannot overlook the many tedious tasks that I have been set and done during my time there. With copious amounts of writing, photocopying, erands and laptop break downs to keep me busy throughout my eight and a half hour work days. I also have to admit that at times it has felt like sifting through an endless riverbed of sand and pebbles. Representing that no matter how much you do there is always more of it that needs to be sifted through. Yawn!

But then there was the gold nuggets amongst the sand and rock.

These gold nuggets took the form of scientific experiments, making machines and intelegent conversations with scientists about their work. One of the real golden moments of my time there was making my own hologram. Which was doubley worth it as Pearl and I had just worked round a large dilema which we had with the chemicals needed to develop the hologram, making our sucess in creating one all the sweeter! There was also the moment I had finished biulding the Hydrocar and after a first pathetic attempt mad it work. Watching it scoot around obsticles in its way was very satisfying as it had taken half of the day previously and the whole of thursday moring to figure out how to get the mavilous machine to work. Then there was also talking to an astronomer about his research of the findings of Integral, a satilite telescope, and about how it picks up the gamma rays that stars and black holes emit.

Although I don't currently understand fully what he does and what Integral does, I had an exciting conversation with him and about space and what we can find there. Those points of my work experience along with a couple of others made the whole experience and overal high. As they far eclipsed the boring normal work.

So my view of work experience is positive as you learn and sometimes have great fun and would recomend it to anyone else as it was a brilliant experience. Of course it has its down side but nothing in life doesn't have one and what you get out of it is so worth the slightly boring tasks. This was truely a life changing point for me and I would do it again.

Abi's Work Experience

My name is Abi and I am an As level student. I spent three days with Sadie, in the Physics and Astronomy department at Southampton University. I experienced both outreach and the general physics department.

On my first day I was given a tour of the physics building, all five floors! I also went onto the roof to see the observatory but unfortunately it was very wet so they couldn't be opened. I met some PhD students and some of the resident astronomers, to find out what they research. Sadie gave me a presentation of her PhD work, and I learnt a lot about supermassive black holes and what the department is researching as a whole. It was very interesting and enjoyable. I also did a worksheet based on the Hubble constant, which was a first year undergraduate experiment, measuring recessional velocity and distance of galaxies to calculate redshift and size of the galaxies. I also attended a seminar by a visiting astronomer, Karina Caputi, who is an assistant professor from the Kapteyn Astronomical Institute at the University of Groningen. The seminar was called "Massive Galaxies in the first 2 billion years," it was very interesting, but a little tough as it was aimed at the PhD students.

On my second day, I was given a tour of the university campus, including the library, the union and the sports facilities, by Ridwan. It was very interesting, if a little soggy, as I would really like to study at Southampton University. I was also given a tour of the physics undergraduate laboratories, by Mark, a demonstrator. He showed me the 1st, 2nd and 3rd year experiments and the labs that they use, including diffraction, radioactive materials, circuits and superconductors. I was shown the lasers, class 3 and 4 (the most dangerous type of laser). I was also taken to the mechanical workshops, where they design and build equipment for institutes all over the country. I was shown the milling machines and the computer 3D modelling software.

Anechoic room.

On my last day I worked with Dr. John Nesbitt to try and explain his research, but in a way a 14 year old would understand. It was called time resolved incoherant anti-Stokes Raman spectroscopy, so it was quite difficult. For example, we changed phonons to vibrations. I spent the afternoon with Dr. Steve Dorney, he gave me a tour of the vibrations and acoustics department, it was amazing! He showed me the Anechoic room, which is a room completely free of echos.

Echo room.

I then went in the Echo room, which is the complete opposite of the Anechoic room. All of the walls are asymmetrical, and are designed to mimic a cave.

I was shown some of the experiments that are used in the roadshow that Dr. Steve travels around the country with, including a dragon bowl and a thunder drum.
I was also given a vibration rod, a metal rod thats rings different notes when you rub it.
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQgP9zG681g 

Vibrating rod.

Dragon bowl.

I have learnt a lot from my time at the university, I have developed my communication skills after talking to PhD students and lots of new people. All of my co-workers were friendly and very welcoming, and it was an amazing opportunity to experience life at the university. It has definately exceeded my expectations, I have had an amazing time and met some amazing people.
I would like to thank everyone that I have met and everyone that worked with me, and I would recommend the work experience to anyone that is interested in physics and astronomy.