Day 1 Yesterday, Monday the 1st of Febuary was my first day on work experience here in UL. I arrived at the main office at 9.30 to meet Maria who introduced herself and brought me for a brief tour of the physics department. In our travels around the department she introduced me to John and Eamon but most inportantly John Sweeney whom i would be spending the week with. After myself and John had been introduced Maria left me under his supervision.
Our day began when John brought me to the optics lab where he showed me some experiments that had been set up for some students. They were all very interesting to learn about. After a short tea break I was brought to the postgraduate laboratory where i was given a tour of all the different projects that the postgraduates were currently working on. I also got to see some very interesting pieces of equipment being used by the post grads in their research.
At 1 I went for lunch and on returning at 2 John and I went to see a demo on heat detecting cameras which i thought was very interesting. Afterwards Eamon brought me to his lab where we both conducted an experiment. I thouroughly enjoyed this. In total I had a very good first day. I went home looking forward to the upcoming week!
Day 2
Today i began in the Life science department where i was atending a Food Science lab. I got kitted out with my white coat and glasses and joined a group of students whom i would be working with for the duration of the class. Our first experiment was the saponification of food lipids and then did the determiation of iodine number in food lipids. I really enjoyed working with the other students. After lunch i went to the physics students computer lab where john explained blogging and introduced me to this!! Later ill be attending a lecture about light dispersion and refraction.
Day 3
My third day here in UL began with Leo in the Chemistry department. He showed me all of the fancy equipment in the chemistry laboratorys and i got to test some of them out with a couple of experiments. After lucnh John brought me to spend time with the postgraduates. I firstly went with Mike who showed me his work and the very interesting equipment he uses. Afterward Joey showed me all about his fascinating work with optics and lasers which could be used to tell if a person had skin cancer which i really enjoyed and found facinating. I then spent a short while with Andrea who explained all about her project to me.
Day 4
Thismorning i went with Immanuel, who is a physics postgraduate, to see his work on offshore wind turbines. I found his project extremely interesting and topical. After a short tea break John and I went to the college library where John showed me around and explained how it works. After lunch i went with Eamon to his lab where we conducted the freefall experiment and recorded the results. John then showed me all of the internal parts of a computer and then, after many attempts we managed to install windows xp onto the computer from scratch! Another very enjoyable and interesting day in UL had come to an end!
Day 5
How the week flew, here i am writing about my final day in UL. Today began over in the life science department where i attended a plant physiology lab. I was put in a group with three others and we all conducted a practical experiment which was the culture of nutrient deficient plants. I then graphed the results of my freefall experiment using excel which ive shown above.
Its hard to belive an entire week has gone by but you know what they say; Time flies when you're having fun!! I would like to say a huge thanks to John, Maria, Eamon, Jackie, Leo, all the post graduates who kindly took time out to show me their work and anyone else who i met throughout this very interesting and more importantly enjoyable week. It has been a brilliant experience and i would recommend it to anybody interested in science.
Bye :)
