Who is/will be studying what?

ApeXaviour

PrecariousNuts wrote:

12 hours??! That's barely 2 and a half hours a day, pff that's not even worth going in for.

Aye but that's a conservative estimate and before 6 hours of labs and tutorials and seminars etc etc etc..
So it'll definitely pan out to be over 20. But that's better than the near thirty in SF.

PrecariousNuts

Whats TP like?

Pet

ApeXaviour wrote:

Pet, I strongly urge you to do chemistry at least in first year. You can drop it in second year and stick do either the two biologies or geog and geol.
That's a little ambiguous, let me explain better.
In first year you pick 3 subjects, IMO your best bet would be to pick:
-geog/geol
-biology
-chem
(maths methods is then mandatory)

Then in 2nd yr you could drop chem if you wish, then I would advise:
bio 1 (afaik biochem, microbiology)
bio 2 (afaik botany, zoology, ecology etc.)
geology

OR

bio 2
geology
geography.

The reason I think you should do chem in 1st yr is cos in 3rd yr some of you have 2 chemistry courses! Also 1st year chem is not that difficult, it's very broad and would give you a good post LC grounding in chemistry which would save a LOT of hassle in the later years. SF chem on the otherhand (I'm studying it right this minute) is needlessly more advanced and would have little application in enviromental science IMO..
Also in 1st year, your only other choices would be to do either Physics B or Maths. Which would be of very little use to you in your chosen moderatorship. At least that is when compared to chemistry..

EDIT: To answer your question (:o sorry, tangents): as long as you do biology in JF and biology 2 in SF you should be able to get environmental science. Chem would possibly be the lesser of three evils (maths n phys) in your case. But if you like or did well in either maths or phys in ur LC then I suppose it wouldn't be too harmful choosing either of them in JF.

Well, physics is out, I love it but didn't do it for the LC, and catching up sounds like an arseload more effort than I'm willing to expend.

Maths/Maths methods...opinions are divided here. I did honours for the LC, got a B3 (without much effort) so people are telling me that I def should do maths. But then, if I do maths methods, I can pick 3 subjects! And geog/geol sounds interesting enough..

I'm DEFINITELY doing biology, no question about that.

Also, my subject choice form has to be in soon enough, so I have to get my arse into gear..

Thanks for the explanation btw.

ApeXaviour

PrecariousNuts wrote:

Whats TP like?

Haven't a clue.. There is no specific departmental time-table afaik cos it's a coalition degree 'tween the physics and the maths dept. I refer this question to the TP's of you..

Kevin_rc_ie

Just a side note on the subject choice.

You can still do Geology in Second year if you don't do G/G in first year.

In that subject they really dont do a lot of specific work as it is very general. You will need to catch up at the start of second year especially for practical work but it's not a big deal

Nobody would recommend taking physics up fresh with out A level/Leaving in it, unless you are a total genius and dedicated student.

I think ApeX would also agree that taking Bio and Physics isn't a good idea either.

You're just going into 1st year now so it is possible your desision will change but doing Bio, Chem and Maths will allow you to do every Mod except Phyics, Chemistry and Geography.

Bio, Chem, GG will also leave you with many if not the same as above choices.

Also just to confirm what ApeX said about 1st year Chem, it isn't impossible if you got a B in the leaving (or even a C) in honours and you do descent work for it. The first year examination is very accomidating and the beat on the street is they will give you a lot of benefit of the doubt if you make a good effort exam day. Also one of the papers is multiple choice.

also someone said most computers on campus are crap, this person obviously only likes to play doom 3, debug a billion lines of code and play online pool at the same time if he thinks this. With the obvious exception of the junk littering the hamilton foyer, most pcs are 2.0 ghz, 512 ram. They even upgraded the physics department and downstairs of ham.

ApeXaviour

Kevin_rc_ie wrote:

Just a side note on the subject choice.
You're just going into 1st year now so it is possible your desision will change but doing Bio, Chem and Maths will allow you to do every Mod except Phyics, Chemistry and Geography.

Kev's got the right idea there, just one tiny thing (I'm sure it was just a slip). You can of course specialise in chemistry if you do chemistry in first year..

Kevin_rc_ie wrote:

Also just to confirm what ApeX said about 1st year Chem, it isn't impossible if you got a B in the leaving (or even a C) in honours and you do descent work for it. The first year examination is very accomidating and the beat on the street is they will give you a lot of benefit of the doubt if you make a good effort exam day. Also one of the papers is multiple choice.

Yeah, my mate didn't even do chem in the LC n also just scraped the points to get into sci (so he's not a genius). He passed chem in 1st yr and now he's doin it for his degree..

Kevin_rc_ie

Woops,

I stand corrected, although it was obviously wrong. My mate didnt do it for LC and he is doing it as his MOd now! But again, like all these complex subjects its just a matter of effort and work. Nothing in First or Second year, in any course in any irish uni/college isn't do able with the right amount of work.

Kevin_rc_ie

Kevin_rc_ie wrote:

also someone said most computers on campus are crap, this person obviously only likes to play doom 3, debug a billion lines of code and play online pool at the same time if he thinks this. With the obvious exception of the junk littering the hamilton foyer, most pcs are 2.0 ghz, 512 ram. They even upgraded the physics department and downstairs of ham.

Its not doom 3, Sky likes to play Starcraft. Pay attention.

chump

i dare say i can't believe the amount of physics people here!

somebody asked what tp is like:
it's tough

i'm entering SS EP, having done MCP in 1st and 2nd and specialised in physics for 3rd year.
Physics is 1st and 2nd year is almost identical to the physics the TPs do.
Physics in third year has a huge failure rate and no repeat exam and 45% to pass (both TPs and other Physics ppl seem to fall at this hurdle)... Science physicists do an extra crappy paper than the TPs, while the TPs do whole maths courses. The level is stepped up a fair bit from second year, which is in turn stepped up a fair bit from 1st year.

3rd year physics labs aren't nearly as hard as you think. fair enough it's six hours labs a week. the write ups are 20odd pages long and take 8-20hours to do, but you only need to do 9 in the year and lots of people end up handing in only 6-8.
Regular pysics folk also do a whole term of comp labs that the TPs don't do.
TPs labs are every 2nd week and they have 5 reports to do.

The whole thing is a bit boring really TPs certainly have it tougher in third year.
But, I personally would say it's the equivalent work load to MCP in 1st and 2nd year. Especially if you haven't done chemistry at school, as it is very tough!

Anyone have any suggestions as to what an average physicist can do after college with a 2.2/2.1 degree?

chump

chump wrote:

Anyone have any suggestions as to what an average physicist can do after college with a 2.2/2.1 degree?

I hear fishing is good?

sleepingbeauty

hrm blankcanvas who did u have for 061 last yr? and u doing maths this year?

yup im doing maths this yr- keeping same subject combo as last yr (phy/chem/math).....as for who i had for 061 i cant for the life of me remember is name, he had dark hair anyway (that should narrow it down a bit ) ill try and think of it and get back to you

ApeXaviour

chump wrote:

Anyone have any suggestions as to what an average physicist can do after college with a 2.2/2.1 degree?

They're two different kettle of fish and I'm surprised you haven't researched this considering you're entering SS (maybe I'm the only one with a semi-solid 10yr plan?). In academic terms a 2.1 pretty much as good as a 1st. In both cases a world of postgrad opportunities are open to you and not only that but if you do it in trinity, afaik they will pay for it.
With a 2.2 or a 3rd you can still get pg research but it is a HELL of a lot harder to find (bottom of the barrel basically, especially with a 3rd). More often people would go into teaching or finance etc. with a 2.2 or 3rd.

PS: You know John McCone? aka Evil John (nice guy tho). He's in your year, ask him cos he seems to know everything about post-degree physics. He's also very approachable if you don't know him that well..

EDIT: by the way thanks for the info man! I only hope mine can be half as helpful to you..

PrecariousNuts

http://bls.gov/oco/ocos052.htm is a good page.

My goal at the end of it all is a PhD. Newscientist a week or two ago had an excellent article about the 9 biggest physics research projects on at moment or in the near future. It was very inspiring, I'll scan it in later if you want to have an idea of what the research end would be like. It featured the Large hadron collider which will be the biggest particle accelerator in the world. The earth simulator, the worlds fastest supercomputer. The Cassini-Huygens Probe, which was much larger than I expected. The Joint European Torus, a fusion reactor. The national ignition facility which I hadn't heard of before this which is trying to create fusion using giant lasers. LIGO yjr gravitational wave detector. The Pierre Auger observatory, a cosmic ray detector. AMANDA a neutrino telescope located 1400 metres under the antaric ice. Atlas which a huge particle detector for the LHC

chump

wehweh evil john was my lab partner last year. he's a fine chap.

i'm definitely not someone with a 10year plan by the by

PrecariousNuts: i've read alot about those things from our wonderful physics world magazine... exciting enough actually, but i'm not sure if i'm interested enough to be honest!

i was thinking what if i could diverge from physics... but I'd love to know of some other human tales about people out of physics degrees going into other things... management might interest me, or finance, and i was thinking teaching there recently, but frankly i should have greater financial muscle than that

But really it's a tough call entering the final year not having a clue what you want to do at end of it... I seem to be having less and less a clue the older I get!

David19

If you can get into it finance is a good job. Having a physics degree could help. There's loads of websites on jobs and careers. Just google physics careers.

Pet

*Kicks himself for doing chemistry instead of physics for the LC*

PrecariousNuts

I'd say chemistry is more in demand at the moment, get into nanotechnology and you're in the money

Pet

PrecariousNuts wrote:

I'd say chemistry is more in demand at the moment, get into nanotechnology and you're in the money

I know, but chemistry is so boooooooooring! *whines*

And physics is a big load of fun (well for me at least, I love all the quantum mechanics and nuclear energy and astrophysics and whatnot). Stupid sister, convincing me to do chemistry. I oughtta slap her.

ApeXaviour

Pet wrote:

I know, but chemistry is so boooooooooring! *whines*

And physics is a big load of fun (well for me at least, I love all the quantum mechanics and nuclear energy and astrophysics and whatnot). Stupid sister, convincing me to do chemistry. I oughtta slap her.

You know you can still do physics. I wouldn't recommend doing it with biology tho..

And Chump.. If you're thinking of diverging from physics (you chose the right the degree to do that with btw). Really there is a world of diverse opportunity out there, you could go into law, sci-writing etc. Do a bit of research. I don't think you'll find much info here as we're all in the same boat (students).

vinks

just finishing up on the MSc HPC course, but i will be working in the tchpc centre soon. so no longer am i a student!

The Shol'va

Another Computer Science guy right here. I'll be the one obsessed about Stargate... :P

Nietzschean

Hrmmm yeah the name just about gave it away there