Applicants Day

We welcome all applicants and prospective students for our Physics BSc course to visit us at any time of common convenience. An Applicant Day is held every year for the duration of a full day, that mixes discussions on the Course, on Physics, on the staff and students that we have here in Wolverhampton, and why all together this makes it possibly the top destination for you to shape your future and achieve results beyond those can be achieved at other universities. So, save the date and only if you come to us only once, you'll definitely enjoy the day!

Program

(This is the program for the Applicant Day of Saturday, 16 June 2018, which is characteristic of all the others)

The program for the day will run from 10:00 till 16:00 (with some room left afterward for on-site applications or further queries) to present the specificities of our course and convince you that beyond offering a unique curriculum and methods of delivery, it is also the best choices for aspiring Physicists who set their expectations at the highest level despite possibly not always the best start in Academia.

Summary of the program:

• 10:00-10:30 - Welcome & reception; registration
• 10:30-12:00 - Physics at Wolverhampton
• Lunch break ; tour of the premises
• 13:00-14:00 - Thinking like a physicist: from free-fall to quantum technology
• 14:00-15:00 - Laboratory demonstrations
• 15:00-15:30 - Coffee break
• 15:30-16:00 - What you will do and what you could do at Wolverhampton
• 16:00-16:30 - Personal queries, interviews, etc.

In more details about the content:

• 10:00-10:30: You will receive a badge to enter the premises and given further instructions on where to go. As everybody arrives, you will have the chance to walk around the campus, visit the library and the learning centre, the common areas, the Student Unions, the sports facilities, etc.

• 10:30-12:00: We will explain what is Physics as a subject—the Art of Finding Things Out—and how it relates to other disciplines, from Mathematics to Engineering passing by Chemistry, Biology, etc. We will introduce our method of delivery, based on Research-led teaching, and how by crossing the threshold of the University, you leave school behind and start a new world with a whole new approach and new possibilities.

Physics is the Science of the Universe: you will learn about galaxies and atoms and everything in between: how they move, how they interact, what one can do with this and what are the big questions of today.

• If you have time after the lunch break in our food court, you will have further opportunities to visit the site.

• 13:00-14:00: We will illustrate what Physics is about by considering a few cases study, namely, solving simple problems that require Physical intuition and/or reasoning. This session will be in the form of interactive games, understanding the problem being posed, discussing it together and experimenting to progress towards the solution before checking and validating it according to the Scientific method. We will also introduce you to the world leading Research which is undertaken at Wolverhampton and how you could be taking part in it.

We will challenge you and work out together some problems using the Physicist method, including: How to figure out whether an egg is boiled or not without cracking it open? How to explain that filtering out polarizing light makes a source brighter? What happens to a slinky in free fall? Etc.

We are world-leading in Research in the fields of light-matter interactions, with regular publications in top journals of science, such as Physical Review Letters or journals of the Nature family, as well as the publication of an advanced undergraduates textbook (Microcavities) published in Oxford University Press (2017). Not only will you be in touch with some of the best experts at the international level, you will also get unique opportunities to actively engage in Research, adapted to your level, from day one of your University life in Wolverhampton. This is a short video that summarises one of our recent achievement in the field of quantum computing:

• 14:00-15:00: This session will illustrate our laboratory practicals. We will demonstrate a few of the setups that you would get your hands on, and the spirits with which such sessions are undertaken. As Physics is the Science of Everything, we will explore from light to particles, playing with springs and computer-monitored kinematic cars, illustrating in real-time conservation laws in collisions, explosions, etc., with lenses, that are the building blocks for optics and much of wave-Physics, and γ-rays from a Caesium radio-source.

• 15:30-16:00: This Session will give a survey of the range of unique possibilities that will be within your reach at Wolverhampton, and which you will not find anywhere else in UK, such as the possibility to engage in active Research from Year 1 and publish your own results with Research-active staff, or to implement with us some projects that could take shape with your participation, such as the creation of a Physics Podcast animated by students or a re-creation of the Eratosthenes experiment of measuring the radius of the Earth from observing the shadow cast by poles in several places of the country. Such mini-projects will require, exercise and shape your sense of autonomy, responsibility and creativity, which are the most valuable assets that you can develop for your future career.