I took a Citi Tour Bus in Cambridge

Today (August 31st) was the last day in Cambridge. I've come up with several plans for the last day in Cambridge, and I decided to go with taking a Citi Tour Bus. I thought this is the best way to store all the memories in Cambridge for the last one year. Taking a tour bus is always exciting because you can feel all the energy from other tourists.

Surprisingly, there was 3 pound discount for students, so it costed me 9 pounds (ouch!). Deciding to take the tour, I was looking forward to discover new places which have historic significance. Unfortunately, however, the bus took me to the places where I've routinely passed by due to lectures and libraries. I honestly felt really nice in that my daily route was the heart of Cambridge!

I have to say that Cambridge is extrmely gorgeous, classic, beautiful and strong. I think I successfully sealed my memory pocket of Cambridge. FAREWELL!

August is not ideal season for open double-deck bus

St Catharine's College

I would like to proudly introduce my college St Catharine's College, one of the oldest colleges in Cambridge. Making an application for the MPhil course, I firstly considered the prestige and reputation of the college. St Catharine's was established in 1473, and has been continuously ranked in one of the top ten colleges in terms of undergrad's academic performance. Another critical benefit of this college is the location. It is probably 3 minute walking distance from the college to the Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy, so I was able to have breakfast, lunch or dinner whenever I needed to have. If I have to single out the most important things in the campus life, I would say accommodation itself and its location. Good accommodation includes nice housemates, quite environment, fast internet speed and so on, and having a good accommodation does maximise work efficiency. The dinning room in the college is particularly popular among the people in New Museum Site due to the location, reasonable price and tasty food.

Front view of the college

College view with snow lightly covered

St Catharine's College is probably only the college which you can see the entire view from outside. The pictures of front gate is usually taken by tourists on the way to King's College. I've realized that people have different thoughts regarding the front view of the college. Some say that no college other than Catz has spectacular and opened front view in Cambridge. Even though, in fact, this college is one of the smallest colleges, and most of college buildings can be seen through the front gate, the front view tends to raise confusion that there might be more spaces beyond the main court. By contrast, it seems like that others have an issue on the college buildings; they say the buildings are rather depressive. I agree with both opinions and my college looks different everyday. It is gloomy or elegant depending on my mood and the weather.

Being a student of University of Cambridge, I prefer old colleges rather than modern ones. Modern colleges obviously have merits to graduate students as they care of grads more than old colleges do (my personal opinion), and as they are modern, facilities are way better. However, after having a formal dinner in a dining room (I don't know the room name), which is officially for college fellows, I became absolutely fascinated by old colleges, and eventually got to understand why old colleges are valuable. College dinning rooms amazingly retain an medieval aura. Candles, framed portraits on the walls, tables, chairs and people... Every single of these elements create mysterious mood. If there is one thing you ought to experience while in Cambridge, it would be formal dinners in old colleges.

Easter term

The result of Part 1 was disclosed two weeks after the exam. Cambridge setting great store on tradition, the result was posted on the front door of the department. I have no intention to disclose the result here, but we went to a pub straightaway to celebrate the successful accomplishment. I believe it was significant achievement in my life.

Right after the exam, I finally had a real weekend for the first time in Cambridge. It hardly remember how I spent the whole weekend. On the following monday, I contact my supervisor Dr Oliver to begin my project. I was fascinated by her lectures and most of my coursemates agree on that she was the best lecturer in the master's programme. I thought she was the ideal supervisor for the one who has no past experience in dissertation, and I needed someone who is somewhat fastidious and spartacus style rather than generous in supervising my research project. Only the disadvantage of the project was that she was not able to supervise my literature review for some reason, and yet the fact of the matter, it was good news for me because I might have not had enough time to work until she satisfy with my literature review during Lent term.

Taking the exam in April has an advantage. Undergraduates and most of graduates have exams in May and June, and during this period, it is hard to see students in Campus except for libraries and examination halls. Instead, campus is crowded with tourists who visit Cambridge to taste medieval atmosphere in lovely spring weather.

Queen's College

King's College

Queen's College

Queen's College

King's College

During the period of Part 2, there are three official things we were supposed to carry out: to give a presentation in the department, to submit a master's degree thesis and viva voce. These works, I personally think, are not that difficult to just do. As a student in Cambridge, it is more about how you manage to successfully do it, and I would give 6 out of 10 point to myself for my work in these tasks.

There wasn't many opportunity to hang out with the coursemates until the end of course dinner. It had taken place in St John's College by the last year, but in this year, Janet had to book in Downing College for some reason. It was a fabulous night with nice food and people. The end of course dinner was on 30th June.

End of Course Dinner. The person (Dr Elliot) making a speech
was the internal examiner in my viva.

There were twenty days left until the deadline of dissertation submission, and those days were not pleasant time due to writing and editing the thesis. I've finished the first draft of my thesis, but nightmare began from the draft. Firstly, my supervisor was not happy with my lieterature review, and I totally agree with her. It was not a good literature review and there was significant disagreement between the main topic of my thesis and the research field of the literature review. Accordingly I had to just delete a significant part from the literature review and reorganize it since I was not fully understanding many literatures and the supervisor pointed out that the structure was not good and a lot of literatures were in a wrong order.

Lent term

It became a bit easier to manage my work during Lent term probably because the loathsome PhD application was completed and maybe I got used to the people and environment. Since the deadline for the literature review got put off from 14th January to 18th February, I got to have a few more days for the literature review. I have to admit that this coursework was the hardest one during the MPhil programme, and the time given was absolutely insufficient. I was aiming at referencing over 50 literatures in the technology and science field which I was not well up in. I personally think one of the best yardsticks to measure the ability of a person as a graduate student might be writing a good literature review. It requires an insight into the scientific field, organizing skill and good writing skill.
Other than literature review, we were supposed to work on MEMS course works and MoTI (Managment of Technology and Innovation) consultancy project.


I would like to give my thought on MEMS lecturers since this is the one which brought me into nano-world. MEMS stands for Microelectromechanical systems. MEMS exploits all the physical phenomena ultimately in order to sense something or actuate a tiny device. In this master's programme, two modules were included as core modules. The first module, Materials and Processes for MEMS, was scheduled for the first term, and this provides the general materials and fabrication processes for MEMS. The second module focuses on designing and controlling MEMS. To provide my personal feedback on these courses, it could've been more interesting and exciting lecturers though I understand a lack of time to cover diverse kinds of MEMS.

After the hectic period of two and a half months, we had four weeks of Easter vacation, but I am pretty sure my coursemates spent this whole vacation revising for the exam which was scheduled on 27th and 29th April. This was my first experience of taking three modules on the same day, and taking six modules for two days. Thanks to the massive pressure, I believe, my work efficiency and concentration were outstanding, and mental attitude was extremely stronger than ever before.

Christmas break and my sister's wedding

Technically, Christmas Vacation was obviously a vacation in that undergraduates  live off campus for a couple of weeks, and all the electrical power in the department is off for around 10 days. It is a bad idea to travel Cambridge during this period (roughly between 20th December and 5th January) since tourists are not allowed to get into the colleges. It seems like English never stop working throughout the year and have 10 days off at the end of each year (It doesn't mean they work harder than other countries, I'm afraid)

After 2 months of hectic work, we had 40 days of christmas vacation, but massive workload was greeting me. The paper on which a list of essays and courseworks is written is still posted to the wall  commemorating the Christmas vacation in 2010.

MEMS (4000 words) : 18th January 2011
Societal & Ethical dimensions (2000 words) : 14th December 2010
Literature Review (5000 words) : 18th February 2011
Science Communication in Business (four pages essay) : 24th January 2011
Science Communication in Media (write two news articles) : 24th January 2011
Science Communication in Research (one post) : 18th February 2011
Mock exam : 19th January 2011

On top of these courseworks, my sister's wedding ceremony was scheduled on 23rd January. I was quite uncomfortabel because there was nothing I was able to do for my sister's wedding, but at the same time, it was stressful as I had to finish most of the course works before flying back to Seoul to attend the ceremony. Luckily I was able to work in my room because a noisy and cocky american flatmate spent his Christmas vacation in Paris with his girl friend. For the people who are in the late 20s, internal elements are less likely to be big issues in carrying out tasks. Once you know your strength and weakness, managing yourself for a task is not extremely difficult. However, as for external threat (e.g. working environment), it is extremely difficult to deal with it, and hence luck is so important in human life.

I have been living in the UK for three years so far, and I have never seen snow this frequently ever before. As it was anticipated by BBC and newspapers, definitely it was freezing cold in December. Once the temperature goes down under zero degree, it is very likely to snow due to the 'typical British weather'. The amount of snow is normally not enough to make a snowman, but you can easily see the people playing a snowball fight. It is also interesting to watch the foreign students from south Asia or India because it is their first snow experience. For me, snow is one of those stuffs I should be grateful to. People are keen to travel to some exotic places to escape from their routine life spending a lot of money. On the contrary, if the environment gets changed by itself, you get the exotic feeling without spending money. Why wouldn't I thank snow?

I know snow is not common in the UK, so if it snows, I bring out my camera from the drawer and get out. As for me, winter is the best season in Cambridge in terms of mood and beauty. Seeing the people dressed up for formal dinners on the street makes me feel like I'm living in 15th century, and particularly in winter.

Peterhouse

Queen's College

King's College

King's College (I really like this photo :D)

Somewhere in Cambridge

My route in Cambridge

Home-Department-College

After a couple of weeks of cycling, I seriously realized that riding a bike is quite a dangerous transportation method even in Cambridge (needless to say other cities). But, moving around different departments in Cambridge is extremely time-consuming, and occasionally it takes almost 30 minutes by bicycle from home to Cavendish in West Cambridge. So, I've purchased a safety vest and safety halmet from Argos. The biggest improvement in my safety with respect to cycling, however, was not these safety accessories but finding the safest route from the house to the college St Catharine's through the department. As the map shows, this route is about 5 minute cycling distance from the house to the department and 8 minute distance to the college. A third of the path is along the park called Parker's Piece, so there is no question in safety. When the path alongside of the park terminates, I definitely have to stop due to a traffic light. The path from here until turning left is probably the most dangerous region since there is no bike lane, and people (including me) sporadically cross the road, so you've got to be careful. Once you turn left, you can cycle in the bike lane and the street is called Pembroke Street. In the middle of the street, the New Museum Site is on your right-hand side, and you can access there through the archway. In the New Museum Site, there are several departments including the Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy. This site is my favorite place due to Old Cavendish which is the most historic place in the University of Cambridge in terms of scientific discoveries. You can access to the department through either Old Cavendish or the archway which you just came through. St Catharine's College is adjacent to King's College, and my college and Corpus Christi College are the closest colleges from the New Museum Site, so the cafeterias in these colleges are always busy in lunch time.  

the bike lane in Pembroke Street

Archway in New Museum Site

Michaelmas

Most formal lectures take place during the University Terms: Michaelmas, Lent and Easter. Michaelmas is the first term ranging from 5th October 2010 to 3rd December 2010. This period is the busiest and hardest time for majority students in the University since this is the time they are getting used to new environments, new lecturers, new people and new subjects. I was getting through an endless dark tunnel, but at least I had enormous energy so that I could carry out all the tasks enjoying myself.

Characterisation techniques
Materials and Processes for MEMS
Nanomaterials
Physics at the Nanometre-Scale
Science Communication in Media, Business and Research
Societal & Ethical Dimensions of Nano- & Biotechnology
MOTI (Management of Technology and Innovation)
Practicals

This is the list of modules we took during Michaelmas term. Considering there are total 11 modules associated with technology and science in the programme, the four modules in the first term may sound like easy. However, three of them are compulsory (or core) for the exam, and the rest one does not have an exam but alternatively requires a 4000-word essay. Besides, the other business and social science subjects also involve course works, so if you carry out all the course works and make applications for PhD, the workload is actually rather dauting and overwhelming.

I have pretty negative memory associated this term; the memory and the associated feeling is sort of blue and gray. I was just working without any clear vision related to the future. I was extremely busy and finding a academic supervisor for my doctoral research was extrmely difficult. First of all, even though you email someone who is looking for a PhD student, you may not receive a reply. In particular, as far as one of the best Universities in the world such as Cambridge or Oxford, there is huge amount of email sent through the email addresses of the universities, and hence you are less likely receive a reply from the people. I personally advise that you send an email and make a call to the person who you email. Secondly, the information on the internet, probably on the department website, is not usually the latest version, and has been updated quite a long time ago. This means that even if you make a call to the supervisor, you might get to hear that the PhD place has been taken up already by other students in the last year. Definitely, making an application for PhD got my life in the first term much harder. The good news is my hard work got rewarded in that I was offered a PhD place by the supervisor who I made an application to during this term.
  

The cue for Maticulation photo

Maticulation dinner

Cook Experiment

Given that the beginning of my PhD will be rather tough, I've decided to conduct cook experiment for a month. I've got to say it's tough! It seems like I'm conducting chemical experiment on a living body. All the recipes are on the internet, and yet there are still plenty of things you should make your own decisions. For example, you'll never get the right ratio between meat and sauce until you learn from experience. I've made spaghetti with pesto sauce, and I guarantee it was my first and last experience on pesto sauce. Unfortunately this experiment must go on and I'll try other pasta sauces for this week. It's a pity to say that most of delicious and healthy Korean dishes include corned beef or pork, and I don't think I can manage both working and cooking this kind of dishes, so I've given up such delicious Korean foods without any hesitation.

A Small Step For A Blogger A Giant Leap For Myself

I wish to continue to update and upload everything about my life and myself during my PhD course, and hope to see a gradual development in my writing skill.