Ian Cheung and Charlotte Stuart (2nd year)
What does a typical day studying Physics at Keble look like?
7am: Wake up; opening the curtains to a spectacular view of Liddon Quad is always a good start to the day! Prepare a quick breakfast of berries and yoghurt and have a quick read through any new emails in my inbox.
8am: Spend a bit of time making progress on the week’s problem sheets (we usually get set 2 sheets a week). They can often be rather challenging but I do find that after a night’s rest topics become a lot clearer and sometimes solutions to problems I was working on the night before just ‘pop up’ over night.
9am: Lectures start. Pre-Covid, this would mean going for a 2 min trek across the road from Keble to the Physics Department (oh so convenient! On days when you do need a lie in, you can easily get away with waking up at 8.45 and still get to lectures on time). Over this last year, however, lectures have been online, which means you have the flexibility to go through them at your own pace, and I’ve generally found it useful, where possible, to watch lectures towards the beginning of the week and work on sheets later on in the week, after covering relevant topics in the lectures.
12pm: Time to take a little break from work and have some lunch. Keble definitely has one of the most beautiful (and the longest) halls in all of Oxford! Hall is a great place to catch up with friends and have a good chat. It is also really useful having fairly cheap, (relatively) good quality meals so easily at our disposal. However, if I do happen to feel like something a bit different for lunch, it is a very easy walk to make into town with loads of different cafes, restaurants and takeaways available.
1pm: Back to the problem sheets
2pm: We tend to have 2 tutorials a week (to go over the sheets). Most of our tutors structure these sessions as ‘classes’, where all 8 of us Keble physicists go through the sheet together – this is a very effective way to gain a deeper understanding of the topics covered, and gives us the ability to see things from a different perspective that we may not have considered before; whilst other tutors prefer the ‘tutorial’ approach, where it is only you and your tutorial partner in the session along with the tutor - these sessions are shorter but more focused on the specific topics that YOU are struggling with. So although classes tend to better for a more general understanding, tutorials can be good to resolve specific issues you may be having with that aspect of the course.
On days we don’t have tutorials, I go ride my horses! As much as physics at Oxford is intense, there is definitely time to pursue other interests! I also ride with Oxford’s Equestrian team once a week. I’ve found joining a university wide club has been a great way to get to know people outside of Keble.
7pm: Grab dinner – more time to meet up with friends and have some down time.
8pm: More work on problem sheets, particularly if a deadline is looming…
9pm: Time to start doing something more social! Even during covid, I was still able to have some fun nights with my corridor, who essentially formed my household ‘bubble’.
11pm: Collapse, time for some sleep!
Why do you like studying Physics at Keble?
We get taught by some of the best in the field. My tutor this year heads up one of the most prestigious research groups in the field of quantum information theory. It is a true pleasure to be learning physics from someone of his calibre.
On a more practical note, Keble is incredibly close to the physics lecture hall and labs. Back during normal times when things still happened in person, I was able to wake up at 8:55 for a 9am, and head back to my room for a coffee in the 5 minutes between lectures.
Personal statement advice
Avoid mentioning difficult ideas in physics that you may have read about (and possibly understood) at the time of writing your statement. The tutors could potentially ask
you about it in the interview, and it won’t look good if it seems clear to them that you don’t actually understand the topic! Ultimately you want to show you’ve done a bit of research into a topic that is slightly beyond the A level syllabus, but not too difficult that you won’t be able to talk about it coherently if asked about it. Do make sure to convey your excitement and passion for physics, for example, discuss what made you decide you wanted to study physics in the first place or topics you find particularly interesting. Add a little bit about hobbies you have outside of physics to give tutors a bit of background about you – but keep this brief.
The personal statement is not a huge deciding factor in the admissions process but may give you that extra little edge over other candidates. So don’t worry about it too much… focus more on the PAT but make sure it is decent enough to give a good reflection of yourself.
Admissions test advice
This is like a crude sieve. If you don’t meet a cut off mark (usually somewhere around 60%), you’re out (after adjusting for context). So prepare for the PAT like your life depends on it. Start *as early as possible*.
The PAT is marked out of 100, and these are split equally between maths and physics. The topics themselves are quite elementary (to reflect the fact that different exam boards have slightly different syllabi), but the questions are quite difficult.
Do all the past papers. The most important areas to really nail down are calculus, probability, and graph sketching. Basic knowledge of physics is good enough.
Interview advice
Now this is quite different from preparing for the PAT. It is the case that the responsibility now falls onto your interviewers to accurately judge your academic potential and to make the process as meritocratic as possible. Note the emphasis on potential—it is their duty to strip away all the noise (e.g. the tutoring that you may have received in hopes of getting ahead) and to see what you could be, instead of what you are. Simply put, no amount of ‘studying’ is going to help. The interviewers assess you based on your current level. The emphasis is on the ability to digest and apply information rather than the present amount of information you possess.
The best way to prepare would be to get quite comfortable working with what you currently know (e.g. try your hand at deriving the rocket equation from Newton II!)—don’t bother reading up on stuff that is well out of reach. In particular, you don’t need to know a thing about quantum mechanics.
Lastly, speak. A lot. The interviewers are pretty much geniuses, but they’re not superhuman. They can’t tell what you’re thinking just by looking at you, and so by extension, they can’t judge your potential if you don’t communicate.
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