The Natural Sciences thread

[Malbecfan]

Inspired by the lovely people on the Oxbridge parents, I thought I would make one solely for NatSci parents.

DD1 studied PhysNatSci at Cambridge, specialising in Materials Science and is now into the 3rd year of a PhD there. DD2 is in her Masters year studying BioNatSci at Leicester.

Feel free to join and share the wonderful and strange world of our fab DC!

another question! Internships! I have several friends whose children are doing law/finance etc who are all talking about doing internships at the end of year1 in the summer.

Is there a similar expectation/opportunity for NatSci students? And if so where are good places to look?

hope all the other first years are enjoying their course and have settled in well. It seems to have been a steep learning curve!

thanks

@Anon2190 good question!

At the end of the 1st year, neither DD was expected to take on an internship. DD2's was 2020 so nothing happened there. DD1 was meant to be working in the ice cream shop where she had worked since just before she was 16. However, a friend emailed us to ask if DD might be interested in working for her company as their summer intern had let them down at the last minute. DD worked there and made quite a lot of money as well as picking up some important skills. Very sadly the friend died a couple of years ago and at the wake, on learning who we were, came up to ask after DD and tell us what a good job she had done. It was more pharmacological than Materials but they needed someone who understood Chemistry and Maths and DD enjoyed it.

DD1 did a summer internship at our local RG university in her 2nd year in 2019. She hated it, mostly because she was treated poorly and given boring things to do which she said a smart 15 year old could have done. Then Covid happened and in the summer before her PhD started, she worked remotely for a company in Cambridge which she loved.

DD2 has just landed her first graduate job. She was a bit despondent as she had never done any relevant internship or work experience. However, she too worked in the ice cream shop, running it when the owner was away when she was 18, and then when they retired, she worked in a local cafe. All the experience of dealing with (awkward) members of the public stood her in really good stead as she was able to use real examples of different situations in her interviews. The scientific skills were all covered in her 3rd and Masters year projects.

DS asked departmental staff if they knew of summer internships / research placements and also researched online. The ones he found were open to students who have completed at least two years of undergraduate study and have at least one year left to go, so there was no point him applying in first year.

During his second year he applied for pretty much every relevant summer research placement he could find. He was interviewed for a few but received no offers, so he spent the summer doing some (science outreach) volunteering instead.

In his third year (of four) he was lucky and got an offer for a summer research internship abroad. As a bonus, the work he did there has resulted in a paper for which he is listed as a co-author.

Thanks @Malbecfan and @Ironoaks thats reassuring. The course seems so full on anyway. I guess law works differently and they will take people at the end of year 1.