MPhys Physics with Year abroad student, Jamie, tells us what studying at the University of Sydney was like.
It’s a dark September evening, and I’m in Heathrow airport waiting to board the first of two planes that’ll get me to Sydney. I’ve already said goodbye to my mum at security, and as soon as I’m in my plane seat I’m trying to keep myself calm. As I arrived into Sydney, my first couple of months there were definitely not all smooth sailing – but once I got into the swing of things, I absolutely loved the place.
Sydney itself is a beautiful city, with brilliant public transport links for getting around the place and an overwhelming amount of stuff to see and do. I loved spending my time just exploring the huge metropolis, or heading out on the train to the national parks near Sydney like the Blue Mountains to the west or the Royal National Park to the south.
The Physics with a Year Abroad programme combines the opportunity to undertake a research project at a partner institution overseas during the 4th year of study. I had originally applied to do the programme back in my last year of school, and until I was actually on the plane I had always thought that travelling across to the other side of the globe to study was some far-off fantasy in the distant future. I had some experience of travelling abroad with family before, but I had definitely never travelled this far in my life, let alone on my own. Although I was really nervous to begin with, it was an absolutely incredible experience that changed my view of the world, and really opened my mind to what’s possible whilst studying.
My project was in the field of “social physics”, and it primarily entailed analysing Twitter data and trying to develop some basic models for how political users interact. I chose this project because I was quite confident in my coding abilities, I really loved the idea of using the tools of physics in a completely different way from how you’d normally think to use them, and I got on incredibly well with my supervisor. I’ve always struggled to find a specialist subject that I enjoy, but I absolutely loved working on my project, and I found myself being motivated to solve problems just under the steam of my own curiosity which I really enjoyed. This experience has definitely shaped what field of physics I want to delve further into.
One of the stand-out things I loved about Australia was just the sheer amount of wildlife. From the Daintree River and the Great Barrier Reef I went out to with my family to just around the Sydney area, the whole place is full of amazing animals that I’d never thought I’d ever see. You don’t even need to travel that far outside of Sydney to find things like kookaburras, cockatoos, wallabies, kangaroos, lorikeets, pelicans, echidnas, parrots, corellas, flying foxes, glowworms, lyrebirds, rosellas – the list genuinely goes on and on.
While I was studying in Sydney, I joined a few student societies where I met some great friends. The people in Australia are some of the friendliest folk you’ll ever meet, and joining in with societies was the main way I got to know people at the university (particularly the acapella society, I had so much fun singing with them!). I was also part of a group of undergraduate, postgraduate, PhD students and a couple of lecturers that would meet weekly to discuss papers and developments in the field of complex systems, and I always found it really interesting to talk about the overarching topics that my project was based around with other people working in the same general area.
Studying in Sydney was an experience like no other. On my last day there, my supervisor said that once you come to Australia, you get “hooked” to the place, and I completely agree with him. I still keep in touch with the folks back over there, and I’ll hopefully be back there some time soon!
