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.