A-Level Work Experience
At the beginning of June, the Department of Physics hosted 27 A-level students for a week-long work experience placement. The students, who travelled in from both the city region and from much further afield, spent the week gaining experience in what it’s like to study physics at the University of Liverpool and what a career in research might look like.
On the first days the students had a series of talks covering a range of research topics (Carsten Welsch – Accelerator Physics, Faye Wearing - Medical Physics, Emily Costello – Astrophysics, Liam Gaffney – Nuclear Physics, David Martin - Condensed Matter Physics, and Ellen Sandford - Particle Physics), and some excellent hands-on team building challenges and activities delivered by Andrew Low.
The students then spent the next few days with the various research clusters based at the University of Liverpool. Ellis Rintoul provided an introduction to experimental Nuclear Physics, Ellen Sandford and Paolo Beltrame a taster of muon and neutrino physics, and David Martin an overview of condensed matter physics and a hands-on workshop with a scanning electron microscope. During the week the students had many opportunities to view our teaching and research facilities and spent Friday touring Daresbury laboratory under the guidance of Narender Kumar and Bharat Rawat, offering an excellent opportunity to see the accelerator facilities.
The week received excellent feedback, with 79% of survey responses saying they are more likely to study physics and at the University of Liverpool as well as praising the enthusiasm of the staff. Hopefully we have convinced some of them to come to Liverpool!
Further thanks to all the other members of the physics department that made the week possible: Chris Everett, Owain Griffiths, Jorge Romero, Jack Hughes, Faye Rowntree, Charlie Kinsman, Sven Wonsak, Unik Limbu, Rachil Dogolazky, Sam Godwood, Armaan Mohammadi-Motlagh, Jake Diprose, Tom Wonderley.