I have been reading the other blogs left by Students who are also blogging for the University of Salford. Maddie a third year radiography student who is in Finland and Alex a second year student who is currently in Warsaw. How amazing that they get to travel to the far reaches of Europe as part of their degree; I am starting to believe that I may have got the short straw when I picked my PhD because I spent last week in Rotherham.
Before someone from the Rotherham tourist board (do they have one?) gets on to me and tells me that Rotherham is a great place, I'm sure it is but it's not exactly a European capital of culture.
Anyway, the reason I was there was to visit my Industrial sponsor. Many PhDs are funded by companies and public bodies outside of the University. Mine is part funded by the European Union and part funded by Corus. This puts me in an excellent position as I get to not only use the equipment here at the University (we have some pretty neat stuff) but I also get to use the equipment at Corus (they also have some pretty neat stuff).
My trip involved taking some samples I had made here at the University on the train over to Rotherham and getting them checked out by their research team. Apart from having to get up at 5.45am it was a great commute - there are not too many people out at that time.
Because they are an industrial research group they have very different analysis equipment to the equipment we have here and it also works much faster. The results were stunning in just two days I had learnt how to use most of the kit there and I had plenty of results to take back to the University and digest. The same work would have taken two weeks at the University. This is not because the University's equipment is not as good, we just have it for very different reasons and speed is not one of them.
The staff at Corus were very good and made me feel like part of the team for the couple of days that I was there, they also pay all transport costs which is excellent. I am booked in to go back just before Christmas so I am now busy creating more work to take with me.
About Me
- Paul Youngson
- I am in my second year of a PhD at Salford University studying Chemical Vapour Deposition in the Institute of Materials Research. I had offers from a number of Universities but decided to study at Salford because of the freedom to chose my own research path and the excellent links with industry. My Undergraduate degree was a MEng in Chemical Engineering at UMIST and a postgraduate MSc in Polymer Materials Science and Engineering at Manchester University. I spent one year working as a safety case consultant within the nuclear industry to gain industrial experience prior to starting my PhD.
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