robertliu.com

Not much change over the last few weeks. Still as busy as ever. Currently exercising my grey matter over a non-linear 3^rd order partial differential equation – “it’s hard”, is the short description. Anyhow, it is my final year and it’s also that time when several job application deadlines are fast approaching. Whilst being unsure of what exactly I want to do is not uncommon, it does make it bloody difficult, especially with the lack of time to prepare for applications, interviews and generally looking things up. I’ve already had one unsuccessful interview for an IT consultancy and another rejected application. I’m not particularly concerned about these though. They weren’t original jobs that I had been dreaming about, they just happened to cross my path, seemed interesting and I applied for them.

I suppose I’m at that point in life where I find myself staring at crossroads again. Choosing which way to go, at least for the short term, which may have consequences in the long term? It’s not impossible to do a U-turn, but it’s preferable to keep going in the right direction if I’ve chosen the right direction.

My options are to keep applying for other jobs. I have got a few incomplete application forms still to finish – which just requires time. The high-paid city jobs don’t really attract me that much – though I have noticed that they advertise a lot to “Imperial Physicists”. I guess I’m just not a business type person. I’m more interested in science and technology which may explain why I am attracted to defence jobs. Although on ethical grounds, I haven’t applied to a certain atomic weapons company, which I think I have a high chance of getting into.

I’m also looking into doing postgraduate studies, possibly a proper Masters or a PhD. Maybe do a Masters related to sustainable energy and then work for one of those big energy firms or consultancies. I think the main problem here is funding. If I can find a well funded/sponsored course then there wouldn’t be any problem with doing further study in my opinion otherwise I wouldn’t be able to afford it.

On a lighter note, we managed to get some micro-particles trapped in our electrostatic trap = Success! (My final year project btw.) Next step is to characterize it and attempt to trap it in high vacuum. Anyway, back to my other project on computational physics. What fun…

I’m gonna make two posts in one day to make up for the lack of posts in the last month.

So, as part of one of my courses we get taught all sorts of skills that should help us in any career we decide to pursue. One exercise we did was a Myers-Briggs Type Indicator – basically to find your personality type. I am….ISTJ = Introverted Sensing with Extraverted Thinking (Introvert Sensing Thinking Judgement). The short version of what this means is as follows:

“Quiet, serious, earn success by thoroughness and dependability. Practical, matter-of-fact, realistic and responsible. Decide logically what should be done and work towards it steadily, regardless of distractions. Take pleasure in making everything orderly and organised – their work, their home, their life. Value traditions and loyalty.”

Which, to be honest, is not that far from the truth. I do have a longer description of this personality type, but this paragraph seems to get along the main points.

Up until now I’ve been a little unsure about what my degree was actually classified as. Now I’m fairly certain it is an undergraduate, integrated Masters degree – the official title: Master in Science (MSci). The uncertainty came about from the rush of universities adding such courses and without everyone knowing what it was. Some staff at my university have even gone and said, “You are not doing a master’s degree…” which although technically correct, she said we were doing a bachelor’s degree. I think I’m not alone in saying that we thought we were a bit misled when applying to UCAS but now in my 4^th year, I can say it is a Masters.

Why? Partly because I’ve had further clarification over the years and partly because when I attended the graduation ceremony this October, the guys in the year above me who were doing the same course were called out in the “Master degrees” part. But the principal factor is the sheer amount of workload I’ve experienced in the last six weeks. Today being the prime example, I got into college at 9:30am and finished my last lecture at 6pm. The only break I had was a 1.5 hour lunch break. Although on paper, every university probably says their students work hard, in reality, they don’t. Take for instance my first 3 years, which were equivalent to a standard BSc – bachelor’s degree. Ok yes, there were times when I had to work quite a lot, but I usually had at least a few days free at a time. At the moment, in my final year, I have projects and deadlines one after the other and lecture courses and the option of looking for a job after I graduate. If anything, after all this work, I will feel I deserve a Master’s degree – this extra year of study is not just extra knowledge, but it’s time spent in lab doing work and actually understanding stuff!!

So any undergraduates still in their early years – make the most of your free time but make sure you know how to work too! I would recommend to any one to do that extra year to bring your degree up to an MSci, MPhys, MEng, Mwhatever, if you do intend to follow a career that utilises it! Otherwise a standard BSc would do and you’ll save yourself a year as well!

Graduation day for the latest set of undergraduates at Imperial College London. I myself haven’t graduated yet. That I’ll have to wait until next year, but today I was invited as Eddy’s guest. I had the wonderful chance of sitting through the 2 hour ceremony in which 1500 names of the graduates were read out one after the other. The ceremony took place in the Royal Albert Hall – very nice, and I was sitting in the balcony right at the back, so everyone was pretty small as you can see from the picture above. Anyway, I took a few pics which you can find in the Commemoration Day gallery (no longer exists). I also have 750MB of video, but won’t be uploading that. Congrats to all the graduates!

Apologies for the lack of updates in the past two weeks, but I’ve found that my final year is somewhat busy. I said I would be busy “for the next few days” in my last post, but I would like to correct that to “the next year.” Not only do I have my final year project to be getting on with I also have projects to do for my computational physics course with a deadline in two weeks and one at the end of term. The plus side of this is that I won’t have a full exam in the summer, just a quick 1 hour one after Christmas. Quite interesting how much programming I can forget in less than a year so I need to revise it all and also learn how to use MS Visual Studio .NET.

Oh and that’s not all. I also have to do a group project which is less based on science but more on entrepreneurship and developing business skills. It’s actually quite interesting and probably quite a useful experience even if everything is forced upon you. All of this plus two advanced lecture courses.

Currently I’m not that motivated to do any post graduate studies so I also need to devote some of my time in looking for graduate jobs. I’ve already had one interview and am currently waiting on the outcome, but it’s really quite a competitive market out there and the application process just takes up so much time. But it would be nice to secure a job before graduation, the sooner the better, so I can concentrate on my exams.

As with everyone else I seem to meet, I think I’m coming down with the cold :\

My final year in university has officially begun. Three years have gone by so quickly. I still remember moving into student halls and attending the first introductory lecture! However, the pressures on now. No more chances after this year to improve on my degree mark.

It seems as though I’ll be quite busy especially in the next few days. I’ve still got my literature review to finish (almost done at least) by Monday, which is part of my MSci project. I’ve got two normal lecture courses on Devices and Optical Communications to get on with. A computational physics course with both theory and practicals. An interesting course called Research Interfaces (pioneered by Imperial?) which teaches you the skills to succeed in any career as well as give an introduction to business and entrepreneurship. It’s been quite a jump start compared to my long mostly relaxing summer holiday and I currently have a headache after working from 7pm-1am on my report. I started at 7pm because that was when I got back from lectures…

Oh, I’m also sitting in my room which is currently 32.5ºC due to the fact that my radiator has turned on in the last few days but doesn’t seem to have an off switch…so that’s why there was a fan in my room when I moved in!

And Katja’s in London! An all expenses paid trip for her by some organisation for youth. But I will only see her for maybe a day or two as she does have to do some work or is it mostly play?

No, it’s nothing to do with laser eye surgery before you ask. As part of my final year project I will probably be working with high power lasers, class 3B or possibly even class 4 lasers. Because they’re a lot more powerful than your conventional class 1 laser in your CD-player there’s a lot to worry about for the health and safety department. So laser users must be registered to use it. To register you need to attend a laser safety course as well as taking a laser eye test – which is what I did today.

For those who have some understanding of the human eye, you may notice something odd about the picture you see of one of my eyes. You’ll notice that my pupil is fully dilated. That’s coz you been in the dark, I hear you say. Well no. Were you playing a part in a japanese cartoon then? No no no…let me explain. The test required a digital photo of the back of my eyes, as well as other checks. In order to take the picture, the pupil needs to be opened. So they used a few drops of some chemical to relax the eye which made the pupils fully dilated. It stung a bit on contact and then took about 15 minutes before it was ready.

The optician flashed a bright light into each of my eyes to take the picture and all I saw were two purple circles for the next half a minute. The worst part was when I left the opticians and had to venture out into daylight. Not only was my vision a little blurry, it was also distressing to look at anything bright. A white wall that would normally be bright looked blindingly like the sun. The sky was a no go area and as soon as I left any dark passage way I would have to shut my eyes. I guess that’s what it’s like to be a vampire. Well without the turning into dust part and being afraid of Buffy. It was impossible to read texts I got on my phone and when I walked into a shop all the lights, which normally seem quite ok, were flickering and just very disturbing. In some ways my vision was hazy, sort of like what you see when you play either the Aliens or Predator in Aliens vs Predator, although they normally use alternate vision to enhance it.

At least I had the excuse that I couldn’t do any work for half the day. It took a few hours to wear off.

Urr…I mean flat. That’s right, I’ve just moved into my new home for the next 9 months. Well I moved in yesterday, but I didn’t want to take pictures of the mess of unorganised junk/belongings I had, so I have done my blog entry today when I’ve settled down a bit, thus reduced junk. So let me take you through a quick and brief “photo tour” of my room:

Ok, so not 5* accommodation or anything like the Hilton hotel just next door, but I’m just a student. The room size is much larger than the previous year. So I shouldn’t be claustrophobic in here. Located on Queensway, Bayswater there’s almost every shop and restaurant you can think of. That’s the part I like about living in a city – convenience. MacDonalds, Burger King, KFC, Pizza Hut – for fast food. Or a wide variety of Chinese restaurants as well as a few Italian, Greek, Lebanese and others. Of course, I do cook. With a Spar store directly opposite, Tesco Express a few steps away, or Tesco Metro a few steps and a hop away, I shouldn’t really have any excuse to be hungry. There’s also the standard high street stores, banks and even a shopping centre!

Although the Queensway tube station is closed for refurbishment, Bayswater tube station is also on the same street. So easy access to Kings Cross for when I want to go back home to Cambridge .

For those who prefer the country, well I sort of get that on the way to college. Walking through Hyde Park (well it’s actually Kensington Gardens , but everyone calls it Hyde Park ) in the Autumn, Winter, Spring then Summer, you really see how nature progresses through the seasons. It’s quite a large park with several lakes, so takes at least 10 minutes to walk through it so some exercise and fresh air at least. It should take me 15 minutes overall to walk into college.

So that’s my room. I believe I’ll be sharing the flat with 4 others, since there are 5 rooms in total and two separate bathrooms. I think they’re due to move in sometime this week. Cost of my room is ~£110 per week (~£490 pcm). Not as cheap as last year (£95/week), but hey it’s half the walking distance to college and the room is at least twice the size.

Yup, start of another year at university. I went down to London yesterday to pick up my keys for my room. The room looks fine, although I didn’t really remember how it looked since I signed the contract back in June, it was ok. The kitchen looked nicer than I was expecting, although there doesn’t seem to be any dining area. I suppose I’ll have to eat on my desk then. I’ll post a pic once I’ve moved in and made it look like my room.

My brother will be driving me down to London on Sunday. I gathered all my stuff again and boy do I have a lot of crap.

Yesterday was also my first time back in London since the bombings back in July. Apart from the brief announcement by the train driver as we came into Kings Cross that “you are now entering a high security area,” I didn’t really notice anything different. The odd highly visible police patrol as usual, but probably mostly undercover plain clothes officers, if any. I took the tube from Kings Cross, all the way through to South Kensington and later took the Circle Line back from Bayswater through Edgware Road ending in Kings Cross. Everything just looked the same. Hot, noisy and crowded as usual.

I was on a tram in Vienna when I heard about the terrorist attack in London. Slightly worrying, though I’m a little glad (I know my mum was) that I was several thousand miles away.

I got a little side tracked today from my project. I started looking for graduate jobs, and getting an early feel for the job market. From previous years experience, it gets highly competitive and very quickly with most the good spots gone by the time I start looking – so this year, hopefully a bit of preparation will give me a bit of a head start.

Following on from my careers search, I started calculating my student loan. With the new online features (that actually work) on the Student Finance website, I can see my current borrowed amount. I know to many of you I seem to just be buying new laptops everyday, but I do try to keep a good track of my finances, logging in daily to my online banking just to check things out and maybe shifting a few quid between my savings and current accounts just to maximise my interest earning potential.

After doing a few sums in Excel, I worked out that by the age of 65, retirement age, I would owe a whopping £73,032.59. This figure is based on a fixed interest rate of 3.2% per annum and that my gross income never exceeds £15,000 a year (threshold set by government for when you must start repaying your loan) and I do not make any voluntary payments. Of course, the interest rate on student loans is tied to inflation – which will fluctuate, so it could be even more!

Now obviously I don’t plan to be unemployed all my life, nor do I plan to have a low paid job – steady promotions and career advancement is what I see myself doing in the ideal situation. The compulsory payments for people earning above the threshold is 9% of the amount above that threshold. So if I were to find a job immediately after I graduate and start repaying in the next tax year, then I have the following scenarios:

1. Fixed salary of £15,000 - £73k debt cancelled at age of 65. Never actually pay off debt.
2. Fixed salary of £21,000 – debt would remain at current levels. Never actually pay off debt.
3. Fixed salary of £24,000 - eventually pay off my debt around the age of 58.
4. Fixed salary of £35,000 – debt paid off around my early 30s.

Again, these sums don’t take into account pay rises, change in interest rates etc, as they are only an estimate – a common ‘game’ played by physicists.

For those of you wanting to compare, this huge sum of £73k originates from studying a 4 year undergraduate course in central London and having to borrow more than £15k to cover my living costs. This could have easily been £20k, but I decided to borrow less. The average debt of graduates this year is around the £13k mark. I’d expect most people to have less than this, except (poor) medics and possibly other London students.

Of course, there have been significant changes to the cost of university and how you pay back your student loan from 2006 onwards. Although in 2006, fees will be higher, students do not pay anything until after they have graduated and only when they earn above the threshold. Their loans will also be cancelled after 25 years if not paid off in full. So any new students shouldn’t really need to worry about their student debt at the age of 50. As far as I know, these new rules will not apply to my student loan, and I will have to pay off according to the contract I signed for.

In conclusion, prospective employers that are reading this and thinking about employing me, should expect to make me an offer around £30,000 a year plus a car and other benefits. (I wish!)