Natuurkunde

Ik ben een eerstejaarsstudent uit Roemenië. Sinds de middelbare school ben ik erg geïnteresseerd in natuurkunde, omdat ik graag wil weten hoe de wereld om ons heen werkt en waarom de wereld is zoals hij is. Ik wilde graag een opleiding volgen in de exacte wetenschappen, en Natuurkunde was dus de perfecte keuze voor mij.

Groningen trok me aan door het internationale karakter van de stad. Ik hoopte dat ik in een stad als deze alles uit mijn studententijd zou kunnen halen, en dat blijkt helemaal te kloppen.

Wat ik naast het internationale aspect van de opleiding erg waardeer, is de opbouw en inhoud. Elk jaar bestaat uit vier blokken en elk blok bestaat uit vakken die goed op elkaar aansluiten, omdat het natuurkundevakken zijn of ingaan op essentiële vaardigheden voor een natuurkundige, zoals de wiskunde- en programmeervakken.

Er blijft ook genoeg ruimte over voor een levendig studentenleven. Ik ben een actief lid van twee commissies van FMF, de studievereniging voor Natuurkunde en Wiskunde. Ik spreek daarnaast veel af met vrienden en ga graag uit met hen. Ik besteed ook veel tijd aan culturele activiteiten en sport, zoals theater, lezen, hardlopen en soms ook reizen.

Na m’n studie wil ik waarschijnlijk een academische loopbaan, dus in het onderzoek of als docent. Dat lijkt me om het moment het leukst om te doen.

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.