Photo: Andres Armua (image credit – Sergio Parrella)
With winter graduation ceremonies upon us, we had a chat with Andres Armua who is due to graduate with an MSc in Theoretical Physics, and this is what he told us about his experience here:
Tell us about your most memorable aspects of the degree.
The excellent quality of courses and teaching and the nice atmosphere created by the University staff made the learning process highly satisfying. The teaching staff are very approachable and they are very willing to talk about material. The degree is designed in a very coherent way with good introductory courses and also amazing research level courses. The wide variety of projects offered for the dissertation illustrates the large range of topics in which the School is involved.
What was your research project about?
My research project was on the chaotic properties of turbulence, which involved understanding the background theory of fluids and chaos, then running fluid simulations to analyse data and test certain aspects of the theory. Before starting the project I knew very little about chaos and I had practically no programming skills so I can say that during this project I largely improved my understanding of the research process as well as my computational skills. At the same time the project was relevant for the research that was being carried out by the Particle Physics Theory Research Group so that was obviously satisfying.
How did you find living in Edinburgh?
The city of Edinburgh is great. It offers a wide variety of activities (sport, cultural and social). There are also many beautiful towns and places all over Scotland to visit during the weekends. Even though student life can be stressful, I would say that the city helps to make everything more relaxed and enjoyable.
Andres is from Argentina and is currently studying for a PhD in Data Intensive Physics at the University of Edinburgh.
