Physics

I am a first-year student from Romania and I have been drawn to physics ever since secondary school, out of curiosity about how the world around us works and why it is the way it is. So, wanting to follow a science-related Bachelor's degree, Physics was the perfect, most fulfilling choice for me.

Groningen caught my attention due to its international environment. I had hoped that a student city like this was where I would be able to make the most out of my university years—which I can gladly state that I was right about.

Besides the international extent of this degree programme, an aspect that I notably appreciate is its structure and content. Each of the four blocks per year comprises course units that tie in together because they are either mainly physics-oriented or provide essential tools for physicists, such as the course units in mathematics or programming.

The programme also allows for a dynamic life outside study hours. I am an active member of two committees of the FMF, the study association for Physics and Mathematics. I try to keep an active social life and always enjoy going out with friends. I also spend time taking part in cultural or sports-oriented activities, such as going to the theatre, reading, jogging, and sometimes travelling.

After my studies, I plan on staying in academia, and so a career in research or teaching seems particularly appealing to me at the moment.

After obtaining Bachelor's degrees in Physics and Astronomy, I thought I wanted to become a researcher but, during my Master's, I decided to look beyond the academic world.

I still find astronomy and physics very fascinating topics. It’s exciting to study the world and the universe. Someone from the company Nedap came to hold a talk for my study association and I ended up doing a traineeship with them. They gave me further training to become a software engineer.

Nedap works on technological solutions for various markets. I work in the retail department, in which we make anti-theft tags for clothes shops, for example. These tags work through small antennas and chips that are worked into every piece of clothing. Each piece of clothing has a unique number that can also be used for inventory management and data analysis.

I work on the software for these tags and the corresponding anti-theft gates, which actually has a lot more to do with physics and astronomy than you might think because this software uses radio antennas. We might not be picking up signals from light years away but many principles are the same. What I like about this work is the fact that it’s useful and can be used in the real world. There’s plenty to discover and develop, and that’s what I find most important in a job.

My tip for prospective students: make sure to go on company visits. Many companies are looking for science graduates but they don’t always know how to get in touch with you. So, if you see an interesting company, just give them a call and I’m sure you’ll be invited to come around for a chat.

I was always curious about how everything around me worked. At first, I was interested in devices like cars and computers. But eventually, if you ask 'why' enough times, you end up at the fundamentals – which is physics.

It turns out that nature does not operate in as straight forward a manner as it seems. Quantum mechanics and relativity can be very counterintuitive. That made me want to learn all about it. I looked up the statistics on job security after completing the degree programme and they were reasonably high. Because the subject is interesting to me and because the job prospects looked good, I enrolled in the degree programme in Physics.

We started with special relativity, which turned out to be a nice introduction to the type of insights that would be uncovered during the rest of the degree programme. It did not require any advanced mathematics and it also explored interesting concepts about the perception of time.
In the second year, quantum mechanics was taught. This required a bit more work but the insights that were obtained were very interesting and strange. These subjects stood out since they really changed the way that I saw the world around me.

The most difficult subjects for me were some of the course units in mathematics. Not because they were particularly hard but because I could not immediately see why I needed to learn those subjects. However, later in my studies, these subjects came back and their value became clear.

Besides studying Physics, I joined the Mayday student sailing society. I do recommend joining some kind of student or sports organization when starting your student life in Groningen. It is a great way to make friends quickly and to make the most out of student life. I also worked as a teaching assistant (TA) for a programming course unit on Python. TA jobs let you work in the field of your interest and provide a decent salary.

I will do my Master’s degree programme in Applied Physics. The other Master’s programmes are more research oriented. However, I would like to go into industry after my studies. Applied Physics seems to be the programme that best suits that interest, while still teaching subjects in physics that I find interesting.

I decided to study Physics, because Physics is amazing! I'm from Chennai, India, and I decided to study in Groningen, because it seemed like the course structure was tailored for me in terms of specializations and academic rigour. I find Physics intuitive and the course isn't that difficult. There are just many tasks in very small time scales, which makes the program time intensive if you wish to perform well.

So the biggest advice I can give you: University is not an extension of school, no matter where you're from. You will need to develop effective systems if you want to perform well, even if you didn't need one back in school.

'I had to write a research proposal as part of a Master's in Nanoscience. I submitted the proposal to NWO and they gave me a grant for my research!

I work at the interface of Physics and Chemistry, studying perovskite materials which are used in solar cells. We are not sure exactly how they work, which is why we are studying their structural properties. I’m regularly at my desk reading or drawing graphs, but I also use several laboratories on a daily basis to do chemistry experiments, X-ray diffraction or to measure the electrical properties of the material. I also give tutorials and I’m supervising a Master’s student. I like it here; I like the idea of working on an unsolved problem. And we have a close-knit research team; we have lunch together every day.’

Machteld Kamminga - PhD student at Zernike Institute for Advanced Materials