What our students say

Why did you choose to come to Nottingham?

After visiting the university, I knew this was the place I wanted to study. The campus is beautiful and it’s so nice to have all its fantastic facilities within walking distance of each other, as well as having great transport links to the city centre. 

Why did you choose to study Natural Sciences?

I first became interested in naturals sciences when I started thinking about the prospect of going to university. Like most 17/18-year olds in this position I could barely decide on what clothes I wanted to wear on a daily basis never mind what I wanted to dedicate the next 3/4 years of my life studying. I knew I enjoyed all my subjects at A-level so looked for a way I could carry on with them all, and this is when I discovered natural sciences 

The Natural sciences course at Nottingham stood out to me in particular because of the modules offered on the pathway I was interested in. They seemed a lot more flexible and interesting than that I’d seen at other universities. 

What advice would you give someone starting university?

The course is hard but very do-able, if you’re passionate about multiple subjects I would highly advise you to consider studying natural sciences and look at the course at other universities as well. The course allows you to streamline what you’re interested later on in your studies but gives you a grounding in several disciplines. This means you will develop a much broader mindset for tackling problems which you will benefit from massively later on in your studies or career.

What aspect of the course do you enjoy most and why?

I really enjoyed working on my current fourth year project and working with my supervisor. Getting to do independent research into a cutting-edge area of science has proven to be really interesting and motivating to me.

What was your fourth year project on?

My fourth-year project was on the centrifugally forced Rayleigh-Taylor instability, which is a mathematics project in fluid dynamics. I’m considering the case of 2 concentrically cylindrical fluid layers in a rotating cylinder and using hydrodynamic stability theory to analyse when instabilities occur in this system. The main set up of the problem required a lot of analytical skills that I obtained in my prior years of studying maths, but due to the complicated nature of the problem final results could only be obtained numerically so required me to program code to find solutions. I developed my programming skills throughout my time on the course through several different maths and physics modules and these skills have proven vital to my project last year.

What do you do outside of the course and how has this impacted your university experience?

I am heavily involved with some of the music societies on campus and currently manage the university big band as well as being a member of the university orchestra and wind orchestra. I love performing and some of my fondest memories are performing and gigging with some of my best friends who I met through these societies.

In my final year I was also on committee for NatsciSoc and I am the current course rep with my year. NatsciSoc is fantastic for making friends with everyone on the course and getting to know people in different years of study. Natural sciences is a hard subject and not many people understand how the course works, so getting to meet and talk to people who are going or have been through the situation you are in is really helpful. The society also helps bolster a great community spirit throughout the course, it has allowed me to really get to know and develop great friendships with my course mates at some of the fantastic socials it runs.  

What are you thinking about doing when you finish?

Because I enjoyed my fourth year project so much I spoke to my Supervisor about the possibility of continuing research in the area and he pointed me in the direction of the related project which is jointly supervised by him (a Mathematician) and a member of Academic Staff from Physics. I am currently in the first year of a PhD at the University of Nottingham on this project.

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