It's the start of a new academic year and, for me, it's back in from the cold of the "real world". After 4 years working as a Market Analyst I'm having a great time settling in to a new life as a Postgraduate Student in the Imperial College HEP group. I dare not whisper "PhD Student" yet, as we have to get past year 1 first...
I'm one of 12 new students this year, which is apparently the highest number since 197_. We're an interesting mix of people, with a half-dozen countries represented. In the first term the focus for us is on study, which is especially useful for someone like me who's undergraduate notes are already browning with age. We have started a handful of courses so far, taught by members of the HEP group, and are also free to attend any interesting undergraduate courses; which most of us have been taking advantage of, when our schedules allow.
By the end of November, we're expecting to have been assigned to the projects that will take us through the full 4 years. There’s been a lot of discussion among us students already and a bit of early bribery from some of the staff – thank you for the beers all of you. We’re expecting some more formal presentations over the next few weeks and then we should have a better idea about who we should be buying the beers for.
Because there are so many of us this year, we're not all in the same office but being kept more-or-less together has been a great way to form some promising friendships already. I'd like to invite any of them who reads this to add a comment so we can hopefully give anyone thinking of starting here next year a good idea about what to expect.
3 comments:
Special thanks and a pint goes to the person who rescued my bag from the bar on Friday night and dropped it off at our office. Cheers.
Hi there, I'm Tom, and you may remember me from other such blogs as "15 Clarkson Road" (a student house blog that had to be taken down due to inter-housemate bitching) and the most inadeqately named environmental/physics outreach project ever, "Camp Energy".
I've just started my PG studies with the HEP group too, and I am certainly enjoying the experiment-based politics/cajoling. It's like being the prettiest girl at the ball. Except there are 12 of us. And we're not pretty. And there's no ball.
Plenty of quiesh though.
Hello as well.
I'm Jim, and you will not remember me from other blogs such as "15 Clarkson road... blah blah blah..." In fact this is my first ever blog so I should probably make it short.
I also like quiche!
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