Last day for everyone else

Celebrations abound last week as the Undergraduate students finished for the Summer; some for good. Traditionally these undergrads have a big party which mainly revolves around the student bar but this year we thought we'd do something a little different for those who wanted it.

We decided on a 5-a-side football tournament and advertised it some weeks in advance. I'd be lying if I said we weren't worried about the number of people who would turn up; what would you rather do? But when the day came there were more than 50 people wanting to play - I suspect a few ringers from other schools but it was all just a bit of fun.

One bonus for the undergrads is that they got to knock out the postgrad teams which we had entered. My team was particularly bad gaining only one draw - a 0-0 where we packed the defense and didn't really see their goal. The other two matches were a 1-0 loss and a 4-1 loss in which we at least scored a consolation goal.

So we were knocked out in the group stages - a bit gutting but we got to watch two thrilling semi-finals - one went to extra-time - and a final which pitted the undergrads against the post-grad physics students. I was supporting the post-grads obviously but it was the under-grads who finally won it and took home the trophy which had been printed onto paper and laminated. They seemed very pleased with the trophy or maybe it was the fact that they could now go and drink.

So that was the last day for everyone but us post-grads, all of the under-grads have gone on their long summer holidays but we have to stay here and carry on working - I'm slightly jealous. The place is a lot quieter now that they're gone though so that is a bonus.

In September it will all start again when the new intake arrive and the 1st and 2nd year students move up a year; but for now I will just enjoy not having to queue at the student shop and being able to get hold of lecturers.

This is my last post so I would like to wish the best of luck to anyone who has taken exams and is waiting for the results. I remember what it was like to be in your shoes, but you usually do better than you expected to. So enjoy your summer and don't worry too much.

I passed!!!!!!!!!!

I am sooo happy! I just came out of my half-way point viva and I passed.

The interim assessment marks the half-way point in the PhD, it requires a 4000 word report and a viva (mine was 1 hour long). Unfortunately I couldn't fit everything I wanted to into a 4000 word report so mine was more like 12000 words.

I wasn't sure whether a report which was 3 times longer than it should be would impress the judges or just annoy them as they would have to read more. They seemed to quite like it.

The viva was the hardest part, some of the questions covered extremely broad topics: biology, physics, electronics, chemistry...you name it, it was all in there.

I did my research before I went in. I learnt about the backgrounds of each person who would be judging me and made sure I found out how my report would be relevant to them, making sure that I had some stock answers ready; I'd say these only helped me about 30% of the time.

Overall they said I had completed some very novel research but had concerns that I had too many loose ends to tie up by the end of the PhD. I guess I agree with this to some extent and it has been a useful experience to get some feedback from people who have gone through this process themselves.

I feel like there's a little bit of an anti-climax now, I'd been nervous about this for the past week and now I've passed it's like "great, get on with the next one and a half years now". Anyway, I'm quite excited about where I go from here now and have plenty of ideas to keep me going.

Getting fit

I'm not sure if you're the same as me, but sometimes there are important things that you just keep putting off: paying the TV license, changing your address, writing your coursework...

I've been meaning to get fit for some time (pretty much since a drunken new year's eve - two years ago) but for some reason I just didn't see the huge building that I walked past everyday on my way into Uni that had "Tom Husband Leisure Centre" written above the door.

Maybe I just didn't want to admit that getting fit should be easy - I'm a PhD student, so time isn't an issue and it isn't like I'd have to go far out of my way to get to the gym.

So, three weeks ago I decided to join the gym.

I was amazed at what I had been missing out on for the past year and a half. They have a fitness room with all the bikes and treadmills, they have a very large weights room with all the machines you would expect and the free weights. There is a 25 metre swimming pool and (perhaps strangely) two full size snooker tables.

I couldn't decide what to use first but now I have been a good few times and tried everything out I have to say that the pool is my favourite. I go between 9 and 10 and I am usually the only person in there - most people go at lunchtimes or after they have finished for the day. It feels kind of strange to be the only person in a full-size swimming pool with two life-guards but I guess I'm pretty safe if my swimming isn't up to the standard it should be.

There is also a sauna and a jacuzzi, which I have been making full use of - maybe not quite part of the keeping fit regime but it does help to destress.

My beer belly hasn't quite left me yet but I'm hoping if I keep it up then maybe one day, in the distant future I may consider myself fit.

What am I doing here???

I often ask myself this question; exactly why am I here?

I left a good job with good prospects to come and research here, why. The main reason is that I really like to do my own research.

When I took the funding for this PhD the title that had been proposed was to research into materials that could be used for television screens in the future: much more than that, the TV screens would be flexible and see-through when not switched on. It is like something out of minority report.

I spent my days in an office writing out safety cases for nuclear installations; the prospect of doing this research work was just too good to turn down.

However, a short way through my PhD I produced a thin film which (hopefully) kills MRSA and c. diff. which if you read the news are taking lives in hospitals around the world daily. The film is also durable and stable and cheap to make. For me this technology is far more important than the see-through TV screen technology, but I guess that depends on who you are and the way you look at it.

I'm just happy that I have the choice to decide which way my research goes and that hopefully sometime in the future lives may be saved because of the work I am undertaking now.

The second reason is that I would really like to teach University Students in the future. If an undergraduate degree is a license to get a job in the field then a PhD is effectively a license to teach those students. I have already had a taste of teaching and I loved it and hopefully completing this PhD will allow me to teach more often.

Being Assessed

It has been a while since I blogged last but I do have a good excuse.

It is time for my interim assessment!!!

As you probably guessed this marks the half way point in my PhD, or at least it is supposed to - recently the EPSRC (the European Union's science and engineering research arm) decided that a PhD is now 3 and a half years long; however this takes time to filter down to the Universities and so I am having my half way review at just 16 months in.

Anyway...less of the moaning, it's not usually in my nature. The interim assessment is a 4000 word report on what I have done so far, it sounds great - 4000 words is only 16 pages (perhaps more because science is mainly about pretty pictures believe it or not) - but try fitting everything you have done for 16 months into a 4000 word report.

The reason this has taken up a lot of my time is two-fold, the first reason is that I really want to do a great job and pass first time so that I can go on and into the second half of my PhD. The second reason is that I am slightly disorganised (maybe slightly more than slightly), I have bits of paper everywhere, I have files strewn across my computer in a much more disorganised fashion than I could ever have on my desk.

Of course I started the PhD with the best of intentions, my desk would be clean and tidy with folders for each run of experiments and associated articles, I set my computer up so that there were also folders for everything under the sun. Within about three months this had gone to the wall.

I was thinking about this and realised that the interim assessment (while a bit of a pain) is actually designed to bring all of these bits and pieces together and help the student to go into the second half prepared with all of their first year work in an order which makes them more efficient. Also the feedback on the report is valuable to ascertain whether it is going in the right direction.

I now have my random bits of paper filed away and the Word documents are packed away in computer folders all ready for me to mess up again over the next 16 months.

Renovating houses

As a PhD student there are a great many ways to take advantage of the flexible working hours. My way has been to renovate houses in my spare time.

I know people who tinker with cars, watch daytime TV or even lecture in their spare time; provided they put the amount of work in that they are happy with, they can do the work at any time of the day they want.

I chose to renovate houses as this was what I was doing before I started the PhD in the evenings and weekends. I then realised that if I wasn't feeling up to it on a Saturday perhaps then I could do some work on my PhD instead and maybe do some work on the house on a Wednesday instead. It is great being this flexible; especially as many jobs have to be done in the week, mainly waiting for things to be delivered such as washing machines and RSJs.

Doctors appointments are also very easy as you manage your own time so whatever time you spend on something else you can just make up for later. There are some people who can't do this, mainly the daytime TV watchers that I mentioned above, who put off work on their PhD and then put it off some more and maybe a little bit more, until they find themselves a year behind.

Thankfully going into the studentship with my eyes open helped a lot, knowing that this was a pitfall where many people fail meant that I could try to avoid this. I can't say it has been an easy ride and I have found myself behind at times but I have managed to catch up and keep up with my plan.

University Challenge

Here at the University the staff have very good ways of contacting students. The most obvious is email but there are also sms messages, facebook groups and good old fashioned mail; thankfully, they can't send letters to your parents. Perhaps the most innovative, and sometimes annoying is message of the day.

Message of the day is a pop-up that shows up whenever you start up a computer at the University. It is a list of all the goings-on and any information that staff want to pass to students. It is here that I saw the line:

"Do you want to take part in University Challenge?"

Why not I thought. I clicked on the link and it told me to go to the students' union that afternoon.

I had heard about the University Challenge heats at other Universities; you have to answer questions against around forty other people who will eventually be whittled down to the final four with one substitute. If I can just make it into the final four then I'll be happy, even if we don't end up on telly.

I turned up at the students' union to find a room with five other people inside, one of whom was asking the questions. The other four students were mainly based around Engineering and History and were undergraduates - who would answer the questions on classical music and biology that they seem to so frequently ask.

The heats were made up of 25 questions which were supposed to be University Challenge style - and they were relatively hard questions such as:

which four countries make up BRIC?

what post-impressionist technique was used by Seurat?

But the hardest question by a long way was:

what were the full names of the children in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory?

Not surprisingly, I managed to get into the team. With only five people it was not hard to get into a team of five but I was slightly surprised that I got into the four that would be going to audition for the televised show.

We heard from Granada Studios a few weeks later, which we thought was strange as the show is on BBC2. Apparently they make it though. It is lucky because Granada Studios is practically in Salford, being situated on the Manchester side of the River Irwell. Granada wanted us to turn up at their studios for a qualifying round, there are 240 teams invited to this stage and only 28 can make it through to the televised rounds.

We turned up 15 minutes early and were treated very well by Granada, well we were potentially guests on one of their shows. We were invited up to see the producer of the show and on the way saw another team being led away from their interview; we gave them the obligatory evil-eyes and were then shown in to our audition.

It all started very well, the producer received her degree from Salford University and hadn't had a team for four years audition from Salford. The question setter for the programme was also there and he put on a tape of actual questions which we had to answer individually and our scores would be put together to see how strong we are.

The questions were very hard, we were warned of that before we started, much harder than the first rounds of the actual televised show and only seven seconds to write down the answer for each one and move onto the next one. I don't remember much about the questions but one I think I remember goes like this:

If an object has a rest mass of 1kg what mass does it have at 2/3 of the speed of light?

Seven seconds! More like seven minutes. I think we did OK though between us we were quite confident of the answers for most of the questions when we went through it afterwards. It was at the end of the audition that the producer said something that we did not want to here.

"It is unfortunate that your team consists of four white males and doesn't reflect the diversity that is present at the University of Salford"

It is true that the University has an incredibly diverse range of cultures and that the gender split is pretty equal, it just happened that the four of us read the message on that particular day. We still maintain that it was positive discrimination which kept us out of the competition and not poor knowledge, but I guess we'll never know.