It brings students into contact with a research group where they work with and alongside postgraduate students and research fellows. It can give fresh insight into the way scientists work and think in practice. This is the idea behind the Group Project which students must complete as part of their third year. Depending on the area concerned, they would then write a review of the current status of the area or produce a course of lectures on the subject. The rest of the third year, like the second year, consists of a core of compulsory courses covering material which will be assumed by many of the fourth year courses, and courses chosen from lists of options.
Students take a further six courses from the options listed for the third year of the BSc.
During the fourth year, students join one of the research groups in either department and work in pairs on a research-style project. The project work gives students experience of working more independently. This experience should be valuable to students in their subsequent careers, whether they work as scientists or not, and can help them when they are making decisions about possible careers. Hamiltonian Dynamics Dynamical Systems Fourier Analysis Stochastic Analysis Courses from the third year lists can also be chosen. Physics Quantum Physics II Nuclear Physics Elementary Particles Electrodynamics Fractals and Geometric Randomness Relativistic Quantum Mechanics Solid State Physics II Statistical Mechanics Foundations of Quantum Theory High Energy Astrophysics Computational Physics Workshop X-Ray Physics Students may also take courses from the third year lists which they have not already taken.