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University of Manchester
University of Manchester
Manchester

Physics at Manchester

Are there any people currently studying Physics at Manchester that can help me out?

I'm hoping to study physics in September. I'm having to go in through a foundation year as I've just decided to go to university (I'm 21, will be 22 when I start in September) and didn't have the right A levels.

Now I've got an offer from Manchester which I was really chuffed about. I also got an offer from Leeds.

For my Manchester offer I just went to an interview and they offered me a place.

For my Leeds interview we spent a whole day looking round all the different Physics departments, all the university facilities, meeting lecturers, telling us the opportunities we'd have studying Physics at Leeds etc. and I was really impressed tbh.

Now the problem is I was never offered the chance to look round Manchester Uni's physics department, so I'm pretty much clueless about what it's like, how good the labs are, the equipment etc.

So does anyone who's currently studying there want to enlighten me?

I'm kind of swaying in favour of Leeds now just because of the fact I know what to expect and it looked pretty good. But obviously I don't wanna not go with my Manchester offer and then find out it's actually a much better department than Leeds and I've missed out.

Can anyone help? :smile:
I know several people who are currently studying physics at Manchester . . . they tend to have very little to say that's positive about the teaching / lecturers, so I'd tread carefully. However, I have no information about what Leeds is like in comparison!
University of Manchester
University of Manchester
Manchester
Reply 2
Original post by Origami Bullets
I know several people who are currently studying physics at Manchester . . . they tend to have very little to say that's positive about the teaching / lecturers, so I'd tread carefully. However, I have no information about what Leeds is like in comparison!


Really? I find it great, as do all of my friends.

Original post by sii217
Are there any people currently studying Physics at Manchester that can help me out?

I'm hoping to study physics in September. I'm having to go in through a foundation year as I've just decided to go to university (I'm 21, will be 22 when I start in September) and didn't have the right A levels.

Now I've got an offer from Manchester which I was really chuffed about. I also got an offer from Leeds.

For my Manchester offer I just went to an interview and they offered me a place.

For my Leeds interview we spent a whole day looking round all the different Physics departments, all the university facilities, meeting lecturers, telling us the opportunities we'd have studying Physics at Leeds etc. and I was really impressed tbh.

Now the problem is I was never offered the chance to look round Manchester Uni's physics department, so I'm pretty much clueless about what it's like, how good the labs are, the equipment etc.

So does anyone who's currently studying there want to enlighten me?

I'm kind of swaying in favour of Leeds now just because of the fact I know what to expect and it looked pretty good. But obviously I don't wanna not go with my Manchester offer and then find out it's actually a much better department than Leeds and I've missed out.

Can anyone help? :smile:


I can't say much about the foundation year, but as for the first year, in terms of lab they can be quite mixed. The facilities as a whole are fantastic, but obviously witht he first year you won't get a taste of them, however, the 1st year labs are good. They've recently revamped the whole electronic teaching lab and thats full of new tech which you will use. As for the other experiments (which will be based on the first floor) it'll be general stuff which I odubt will vary much across universities. just don't base the physics department solely on the 1st year teaching lab :tongue: The lectures are great. Being such a big uni the lectures will certainly be more formal in the first year (250+ people for the main lectures), but your tutorials will have a maximum of 5 people. You have 2 tutorials a week, one for the physics side and one for the maths side. You also have a 2 hour workshop where you do slightly harder and longer problems, that are a little outside the scope of the course.

But like I said the equipment and facilities are really second to none, especially for astro, nuclear, crystal and matter related stuff, and the links with particle physics to other the main particle accelerators are great. Astro is now based in a newly built Alan Turing building and we have control of Jodrell Bank Observatory (that's actually ours, not something we loan or something), all the matter stuff we have the graphene thing and so on etc.

Any more questions just ask :h:
Reply 3
Original post by sii217
Are there any people currently studying Physics at Manchester that can help me out?

I'm hoping to study physics in September. I'm having to go in through a foundation year as I've just decided to go to university (I'm 21, will be 22 when I start in September) and didn't have the right A levels.

Now I've got an offer from Manchester which I was really chuffed about. I also got an offer from Leeds.

For my Manchester offer I just went to an interview and they offered me a place.

For my Leeds interview we spent a whole day looking round all the different Physics departments, all the university facilities, meeting lecturers, telling us the opportunities we'd have studying Physics at Leeds etc. and I was really impressed tbh.

Now the problem is I was never offered the chance to look round Manchester Uni's physics department, so I'm pretty much clueless about what it's like, how good the labs are, the equipment etc.

So does anyone who's currently studying there want to enlighten me?

I'm kind of swaying in favour of Leeds now just because of the fact I know what to expect and it looked pretty good. But obviously I don't wanna not go with my Manchester offer and then find out it's actually a much better department than Leeds and I've missed out.

Can anyone help? :smile:


It might be worth getting in touch with Fred Loebinger (the admissions tutor for physics at Manchester) and explain the situation and see if they can let you visit for a day or something - I'd be surprised if they said no. I know those who get offers for physics normally have to attend a visit/interview day where you get to see the labs and some of the campus etc. I'm pretty sure the uni does visit days as well, but theyre more for a general thing rather than physics specifically. Wouldn't hurt to ask.

I did my physics degree at Manchester and thought the course was pretty decent. Granted I didnt want anything to do with physics by the time I left, but I don't really think that's the department's fault - I just lost interest. In terms of reputation, I don't know much about Leeds, but Manchester has an excellent rep for physics - particularly in particle physics and astrophysics.

I don't know much about who deals with the foundation year stuff, but I don't think the physics dept deal with it directly (at least not in terms of admissions) so that's probably why you've not been able to see the physics dept first hand.

In short - get in touch with physics and ask :smile:
Reply 4
Original post by sii217
Are there any people currently studying Physics at Manchester that can help me out?


I'm currently a first year undergraduate studying physics at Manchester. I got offers from Leeds and Manchester but chose Manchester over Leeds.

So far I can say, without hesitation, that the quality of the lectures, example classes and learning support are excellent. The lecturers and staff are always looking for feedback and ways to improve their courses and, in fact, this year they are reviewing all their first year lecture courses. The labs are well equipped and the demonstrators are knowledgeable about the experiments they are overseeing. Again, they always look for feedback and you are given an opinion card to fill in after every experiment you do so that you can rate the demonstrator, lab script and equipment provided for that experiment.

Manchester is probably one of the best places in the UK to study physics. I'd be tempted to say it's better than Oxbridge but since I don't know anyone studying physics in those universities, I can't make a legitimate comparison.
A lot of my friends who are currently studying physics at Oxford would've gone to Manchester if they hadn't got an Oxford offer. One of them knows the Manchester department really well and they were all really impressed by it. Obviously they haven't studied there, but it is supposedly one of the top places for physics in the UK. Go check it out :smile:
Original post by dknt
Really? I find it great, as do all of my friends.


Really. I know two people who do it very well, and others who do it less well. One in particular spends a surprisingly large amount of time complaining about the course, and another almost never disagrees with what the first one says (and he's not someone who won't object to something that someone says if he disagrees).
Reply 7
Original post by Origami Bullets
Really. I know two people who do it very well, and others who do it less well. One in particular spends a surprisingly large amount of time complaining about the course, and another almost never disagrees with what the first one says (and he's not someone who won't object to something that someone says if he disagrees).


Just out of interest, what, in particular, does your friend complain about in relation to the course? I didn't really enjoy physics by the time I'd finished my degree there but I still considered the course to be well put-together.
Original post by -G-a-v-
Just out of interest, what, in particular, does your friend complain about in relation to the course? I didn't really enjoy physics by the time I'd finished my degree there but I still considered the course to be well put-together.


'Impossible' problem sheets, lecturers that don't move the visualiser (whatever that is) and vast tracts of stuff that he doesn't understand (despite doing the work) seem to be the main complaints.

It's always hard to judge if it really is as bad as one person says, but the other person who is often in on these convos invariably agrees.
Reply 9
Original post by Origami Bullets
'Impossible' problem sheets, lecturers that don't move the visualiser (whatever that is) and vast tracts of stuff that he doesn't understand (despite doing the work) seem to be the main complaints.

It's always hard to judge if it really is as bad as one person says, but the other person who is often in on these convos invariably agrees.


I've got no experience of physics at Manchester - I'm looking into maths at Manchester so I was just browsing this section. Still, judging by the fact it's such a large university, statistically it would be impossible not to have people who despised it, or loved it, or anything in between.

I guess if eg. 80%+ of the students hated course X, that would be a pretty good indicator of it's quality, but it doesn't seem to be that extreme?

Out of interest, what do you study at Manchester?
Can anyone tell me how much time is spent on labs?? I dread the thought of spending hours and hours compiling data and calculating errors but it seems like that may be what I wold end up doing :s
Also how many hours a week, in general does the course take up??
Reply 11
Original post by archer2000
Can anyone tell me how much time is spent on labs?? I dread the thought of spending hours and hours compiling data and calculating errors but it seems like that may be what I wold end up doing :s
Also how many hours a week, in general does the course take up??


You won't be able to escape it, wherever you go to do Physics. In the first year at Manchester, lab consists of 1 day per week, 11-5 in lab, with 1 hour for lunch. Experiments last usually span over 3 days, with some lasting 2 days. If you do a more theoretical course e.g. with Theoretical Physics, lab is only for semester 1, otherwise it's both semesters. You will also write 3 lab reports.

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