Undergraduate study

I was always very interested in applied physics and chemistry at school, but had really no idea which university courses would let me keep studying these subjects from a real-world perspective. I initially considered Chemical Engineering, but am now very glad that I’ve ended up doing Natural Sciences – and discovering Materials Science this year. For me, it’s felt like the most intuitive course of those I currently study (Materials, Chemistry, Physics and Maths). It’s so exciting to grasp at a molecular or atomic level the physical interactions giving rise to novel materials’ properties, like those in a liquid crystal display.

The department is incredibly friendly. We do weekly or fortnightly lab sessions in all our subjects (with Maths, this is coding) and the lab technicians and demonstrators are always on hand to answer questions and teach you new practical techniques. I loved D.T. in school, so the practical aspect of Materials Science, especially exciting metallography, has been great fun this year. Our main ‘mini-project’ involved taking apart a calculator and testing the components to gain insight into the materials they were made from, how they were made, and how they function together to make a working calculator.

Labs complement 12 lectures and 4 supervisions a week – all in all a packed timetable! I really like it that way though; lots of contact hours gives you a good structure to each week, and help you to get work for supervisions done in a sensible amount of time. This idea of a ‘good enough’ piece of work wasn’t something I’d really encountered in school, where I’d always had enough time for everything to be basically perfect. But it’s very liberating, because you can just put in the right amount of time to the work, then stop and that’s perfectly okay. Supervisors are either PhD students, who have done the undergraduate course recently, or very experienced fellows, so they know that you don’t have endless time. Their job is to clarify your understanding and to encourage you to question. Since you are always surrounded by equally enthusiastic people, you never need to be worried about asking more questions.

Starting out at Cambridge seemed like an intimidating prospect, especially since I only knew one person before coming. But everyone is so keen to be friendly and you quickly meet a huge number of new faces both within your college, and in labs, lectures and societies. Cambridge has such a broad array of personalities and interests that I don’t think it’s particularly hard for most people to settle in if you go in with an open mind. Having friends from lots of different subjects and backgrounds is so nice because they always have interesting things to chat about! I’ve done lots of societies in first year, from life-drawing to jazz band, and have made really awesome friends. I’m really looking forward to next year!

During school I always struggled to pick which science was my favourite, so when I found out about the Natural Sciences Tripos (NatSci) course it was an easy choice due to the broad nature of subjects studied. In my first year, I was certain about studying maths (compulsory in the first year), physics and chemistry, but I was unsure what to choose as the final option – Materials Science or Earth Science. I chose to study Materials Science hoping it would incorporate the physics and chemistry I was already familiar with, along with new topics. Once I began studying the course, I quickly realised that taking Materials Science was a good choice for me – I enjoyed studying biomaterials, mechanical failure, and even liquid crystal displays. There was also some very useful overlap with my other options.

During the first year of NatSci, I attended 12 lectures per week in the mornings and 2 lab sessions per week, where the lecture content was put into practice. There were also 4 tutorials (known as supervisions) each week, one for each option, with a Fellow or PhD student from that subject option. Usually this was with one other student, so in a pair, with the tutor (known as a supervisor), we consolidated materials from the lectures by going over topics covered in a question sheet we completed before each supervision. This aspect of the teaching at Cambridge is very valuable as there is a large volume of teaching material received each week – you can gain a much better understanding of tricky topics via your supervisions. The high number of contact hours for NatSci also means that you need to be organised to make sure you can complete the independent work set, as well as attending lectures, your practical sessions and supervisions.

Living in the collegiate system also has many benefits. One of the main things I really appreciate is the large number of support systems in place to make sure that you are well looked after while living away from home. They make sure that you are coping well with the workload and managing to keep a healthy work/life balance; these include your Director of Studies, Personal Tutor, Supervisors, college family and of course friends! They all contributed to making settling into the Cambridge life much easier and smoother.
In my second year, I chose to carry on with Materials Science and Double Physics – we had to choose three this time. I chose these based on what I enjoyed most in first year, and the analytical side of physics alongside materials science really appealed to me. The workload is slightly lower in the second year – 9 lectures and 3 supervisions per week, which makes it easier to focus on the parts of the subject you enjoy, whilst looking into topics with more detail. This also frees up time for independent working. Dealing with the pressures of the workload is also much easier in the second year, as you know how you work best in the short 8-week terms. I currently plan to take my study of Materials Science into the third year, as I really enjoyed seeing the real life applications of the theoretical knowledge investigated, such as in MRI machines.

The Department of Materials Science has felt very welcoming all the way through my time so far – the supervisors are helpful and friendly, and the lab demonstrators have great patience! I hope that I may eventually continue into the fourth year integrated masters course – if all goes to plan!

A few weeks after A-level results day, I received an email from my Director of Studies asking me to choose my subject options for my first year. I knew immediately I wanted to carry on Chemistry and Physics from my A-Levels, and I had to take Maths alongside them, so I was left with one final option to fill. The Biology courses weren’t really my thing, and Computer Science was definitely not for me, so I was left (as I think a lot of Physical Natural Sciences students are!) trying to choose between Earth Science and Materials Science. It was a choice I didn’t give that much thought to at the time, because I was SO convinced I would be doing mostly Chemistry once my degree became more specialised, but in the end I thought Materials Science sounded like it would be more current and easier to relate to some of my non-science interests. I think switching would have been possible in the first few weeks (especially as both subjects are new to almost everyone at the start of first year), but I very quickly realised Materials was what I was looking for when I had been trying to find degree courses that were somewhere between Chemistry and Physics. For anyone else making a similar choice, I’d suggest looking at the things second and third years study – an introduction to either course probably won’t make for the most inspiring reading, but seeing where the subject leads might.

Getting settled into life at Cambridge seemed a huge scary task before I got there, but it actually happened without me really noticing. Opportunities to meet new people arrived in so many forms – labs with students from across the colleges, joining the boat club and making friends with people from across year groups, my own floor and people I met in Freshers’ Week from Selwyn, friends of friends… and sometimes, just chatty people from lectures who tended to sit nearby. A college is roughly the right size for getting to know pretty much your whole year group within a year, but also for being able to find the people that you get along with best. As well as getting settled socially, at University there’s a new academic level to get used to, which the supervision (tutorial) system really helped me with. In the first year you have one supervision per subject per week – 4 seems like a lot, but they really are invaluable for developing your understanding. The Department of Materials Science’s PhD students supervise in first year, which was amazing since many have done the undergraduate course themselves (relatively recently!) and know the parts which tend to trip people up, or link together different parts of the course. My supervision partner and I weren’t at all sure what the done thing at the end of the year was, but we bought our Materials supervisor a bottle of wine because we both agreed she’d done an amazing job at helping us both improve our understanding of the course and get used to studying science more generally.

Shortly before my second year started, I was asked to choose my options for the year – this time a choice of three, with particular options needing to be chosen in order to progress into certain third year courses. I was pretty sure I wanted to do Materials Science in my third year so that was an easy choice, and I had enjoyed the physical chemistry from my first year so I wanted to carry that on, but I wasn’t very convinced by the other Chemistry option (which had far too many hexagons for my liking). In the end I decided to try History and Philosophy of Science (HPS), something I was sure I would find interesting (having had a few taster lectures and done a bit of reading over the summer), but might end up not being any good at. I really enjoyed a bit of a change from my usual labs and problem sheets. The critical skills I picked up from writing essays have definitely stood me in good stead this year when I’ve had to do a literature review – although I don’t really miss visiting 3-4 different libraries to get a copy of the HPS book I wanted! Before the end of second year, each student ranks a few subjects they want to do in their third year. Materials has about 40 places but Chemistry is uncapped, so I put Materials Science first (with Chemistry as a back-up plan) and am very grateful I’ve spent the last year as a Materials scientist.

Throughout my time studying Materials, I’ve really appreciated how much the department treats its students like adults, and their willingness to help you do your best. The lab work link up with parts of the course or help you understand key practical techniques rather than just being there to give you a mark, and they take place for a few hours each week in first and second year. Second year also included a project, where we were each given an object and a few months to produce a report describing the materials in it. I loved this this task, and it was doing this that convinced me Materials Science was the subject for me. I think if you can spend a day in the lab doing something without resenting it at least a bit by the end, that’s a fairly big indicator it is right for you! Supervisions in the second year are conducted by a mixture of PhD students and academic staff – I had the Head of Teaching in my second year. Again the time with supervisors was really valuable. Also, in each exam paper we’ve had a choice of questions, which is great for when one topic just won’t stick, or the exam question on your favourite topic is just absolutely horrible.

In the third year students ‘only’ study one science, but there’s far more to the course than just lectures and supervisions. In the first term we had a day and a half of labs every fortnight, which might sound a lot but was actually really good fun and again introduced you to a new group of people. An alloy design project (our task was to make an alloy as tough as possible) was a great way of applying knowledge from across the course and seeing a project through from start to finish. Each student does a literature review on a topic of their choice – mine was initially supposed to be about the properties of spider silk, but someone else was doing something similar and my supervisor was very willing to let me adjust my work so it more closely related to my interest in sustainable fabrics. I’ve also done two terms of a German language course, a very short course on intellectual property, had a site visit to learn about crucible production, and done a tiny bit of programming. We also had either the lecturer or another specialist supervising us for each lecture course – which I honestly can’t rate highly enough! It really feels like the Materials Science course sets you up to be a scientist who can meaningfully contribute to whatever area they’re working in, not just someone who can pass the four papers they see at the end and be satisfied with that.

There’s also far more to the Department of Materials Science than just your course. In the third year (as there are only about 40 people in the year) it becomes very easy to get to know everyone, particularly as there are only at most a few students from each college. This year I’ve been one of the ‘social reps’ for the year, organising evenings out with the Materials Science students in the year above, a pub crawl, setting up a year-wide group chat, and getting Department of Materials Science fleeces, and it’s been a really fun job because of the lovely community that exists within the Department. It’s also worth mentioning that there’s a fantastic tea room (complete with mugs you can borrow so there’s no need for disposable cups!), perfect for nipping to between lectures or having a lunch break in with your lab group. I started off at Cambridge with a healthy dose of imposter syndrome, but approaching the end of my third year I’m really excited for my fourth and I know saying goodbye at the end will be incredibly hard, in no small part because of how much I’ve enjoyed being a member of the Department of Materials Science.

I originally applied to study the Chemical Engineering Tripos (CET) via Natural Sciences, which starts with the first year (Part IA) of the Natural Sciences Tripos (NST) in first year and switches to the CET from second year onwards. With this in mind, I chose to take Physics, Chemistry and Maths in first year, which I thought would be relevant for the CET and were subjects I had taken for my A-Levels. As Materials Science seemed to be the most related to these, I chose it as my fourth subject, which turned out to be the one I enjoyed the most. For me, it was the ideal balance between theory and application, and was the reason I chose to continue in the NST, instead of switching to the CET.

In first year, the college plays a large role in helping students get settled in and at St Catharine’s, I found no shortage of different societies to join and people to meet from different year groups and different subjects. In terms of academics, the prospect of tutorials (supervisions) initially seemed daunting, but proved to be immensely useful when you ask questions about the topics you don’t understand – it’s far easier to clarify things then, rather than to struggle with it yourself.

In my second year, I chose Materials Science, Chemistry A and History and Philosophy of Science. The latter option was one which I had been considering taking because I wanted to try something different, both in terms of content and learning, as it involved weekly essays and reading. During my second year (Part IB), I was also one of the subject representatives for Part IB Materials Science, who help to collect and relay student feedback from each term’s courses to the Department’s Staff-Student Consultative Committee. The feedback is then used to further support the students through the teaching and labs. The Department also runs a summer placement programme (CaMPUS), which offers opportunities for Materials Science students to conduct research over the summer within the Department, at a European institution, or in industry. Through the CaMPUS scheme, I spent two months of my summer in Switzerland, at the Laboratory for Nanometallurgy at ETH Zürich, which was a fantastic opportunity to try research first-hand, as well as to travel and explore.

In third year (Part II), students choose to specialise in a single subject. For Part II Materials Science students, there is an alloy design project and also an elective course, which could be a language course, a Raspberry Pi project, or a science education placement. The Department itself feels like a close-knit community, especially with only 40 Part II students, and as one of the ‘social reps’ for the year, it also makes it easier to organise our social events. For me, the quality of teaching, support and range of opportunities offered by the Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy have formed an integral part of my Cambridge experience and I look forward to starting my fourth year here.