Physics Courses After School?

JackKelly

Ok, sorry if this is the wrong place for this. Feel free to move it about.
Anyway, im in 6th year and im strongly thinking of going down the physics line after school but im not really sure what im looking for. Ive been looking around and the courses that tickle my fancy are 1) Theoretical Physics 2) physics with astrophysics(Maynooth).

The Theoretical Coures all require HB3/B2 in maths and HB3+ in Physics, while physics in NUI is basically just pass everthing setup. Which seems a bit odd. Although ive heard that NUI is a very underated college. There doesnt seem to be much of a real difference in the two courses, except one need a lmuch better leaving cert!

Thing is , im not really sure what these contain. Im looking to do more of the unusual physics topics, like the universe, planets, quantum theory, and all that sort. Now i've heard that theoretical physics is very strongly maths based which i think is ok. Maths would be my favourite subject at the mo.Im not great at it but i get the general ideas. So basically, can anyone give any insight to any decent physics courses, content or anything really!?

Thanks

rainbow kirby

No matter what physics course you do, all the interesting stuff like that is near the end. You'll spend your first 2 years in and out of the lab and you'll have to do stuff like mechanics, electromagnetism, solid state physics, all the boring stuff. I don't know about Maynooth, I'm in UCD (3rd year mathematical physics) and we're starting to hit the interesting stuff this year. Quantum mechanics and dynamical systems are 2 of my courses this year. 4th year you get a lot of the unusual stuff you're interested in (theoretical astrophysics, quantum theory and stuff like that).
Hope that helped!

ApeXaviour

Have a look here: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=162028
It's the same question as yours cept with 4 pages of answers.

Just a couple pointers:
Maths in college is very different from LC maths, it's pretty hardcore. You still study maths through normal physics degrees. Only not as much as you have focus on instrumentation etc.
The NUI course? Erm, a friend of mine does it and well IMO it's an easy course, too easy. UCD and trinity aren't.

TCD have a good reputation for physics and physics research internationally. Doing the latter I can tell you it's difficult.
Since you said your interests lie in the astro end I'd personally recommend doing the astrophysics option of the tcd physics course. ie TR071 and pick that. Don't worry, you still do quantum mech (my largest course this yr) etc. The only difference is you substitute some of the solid-state courses in 3rd and 4th year with the astrophys ones.

cannywizard

I'm in the sister course (Experimental Physics) of the Astrophysics course at NUIM. The physics section is quite easy for the first year-and-a-half if you've higher level physics for the leaving and have been interested in Physics for a while (reading around, like). It gets MUCH more interesting in the third and fourth years.

the basic content of a course like that doesn't vary from college to college, but in NUIM, there are about fifteen astrophysicists in each year, which means that there's plenty of lab space and equipment to go around.

A lot of the faculty at NUIM reseach in astrophysics, so you'll get good teching standards in those courses. That also means that postgrad positions are much easier to come by. And even if you're bored by the course, there's a very active physics and astronomy society here that holds talks and events that are really much more interesting than the course material.

That, and NUIM is a small college, with a great athmosphere for students, it's away from the hustle and bustle of DUblin, but yet only half an hour away by train.

I haven't heard great things about the Astrophys course in TCD. I was talking to a final year student there, and there's so few in the course, that they're basically ignored by the department.

Eh, whatever you choose, make sure, it's something taht you're going to enjoy.

Gone West

what courses would you reccommend in physics for 3rd level? Im looking at experimental physics/science(undenominated but will specialise in physics) / or theoretical physics ?

David19

FuzzyLogic wrote:

what courses would you reccommend in physics for 3rd level? Im looking at experimental physics/science(undenominated but will specialise in physics) / or theoretical physics ?

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=201510&highlight=physics+college

ApeXaviour

Yeah.. I really don't wanna go through that all again. Post in the other thread if you've any extra questions.