• Question: Did you like physics

    Asked by sard532bash5 to Vicky F, niamhtopping, Martin M, Heather F, emilywalls, christinaschoettler, Calum on 17 Oct 2025.
    • Photo: Martin McCoustra

      Martin McCoustra answered on 17 Oct 2025:

      Yes… my title is Professor of Chemical Physics… but I also like Chemistry and Maths!

    • Photo: Niamh Topping

      Niamh Topping answered on 20 Oct 2025:

      Yes and no! It really depended on what topic it was…I’ve never been a fan of mechanics and I didn’t like electricity at school and A level, but when I did electricity topics at Uni I really liked them! I’ve always enjoyed learning about space though. I have a Masters in Physics and whilst technically my PhD is in Physics, my work is more like geology and geochemistry (it’s a big mixture of lots of different areas to be honest!) and I’ve always loved geology…if I’d known about it before University I might’ve made an entirely different choice and picked my undergraduate degree in geology

    • Photo: Emily Walls

      Emily Walls answered on 22 Oct 2025:

      I had a love-hate relationship with physics growing up, I enjoyed it the most but I found it the most challenging ‘to do well in’. Physics was always my lowest grade out of all of the sciences but I loved it too much so I would get really annoyed lol. In college, I started to enjoy it more but still disliked topics such as electricity – just couldn’t get around it in my head! University physics is so much different to all of that though and I really loved my degree, it was tough don’t get me wrong but it was so rewarding! Now doing my PhD in astrophysics, I really like applying the physics I’ve learnt across all these years into proper research.

Comments

  • Photo: melissau

    melissau commented on :

    I wasn’t a fan of physics when I was at school, I found it the hardest science subject, and I struggled to see the point of it. I wasn’t good at applied maths whereas I liked pure maths. But when I was training to be a vet I learned how useful physics could be when learning about things like how X Rays and MRI work and to understand biomechanics of how animals move/why they get injured – then I started liking it more, because it seemed more useful and relevant for the stuff that interests me.