Read about what previous summer school attendees had to say about their experience!
"Recently, I had the privilege to attend Queen Mary University's physics summer school for girls. This empowering initiative aimed to encourage young women to explore the world of physics. The program included engaging lectures, hands-on experiments, and interactive workshops, all led by inspiring female physicists. We had the opportunity to delve into various physics concepts, such as astrophysics, and these projects were enhanced by the use of Queen Mary’s facilities. We had the chance to make many new friends with similar mindsets and interests, and overall, the summer school proved to be a successful and rewarding experience."
"Hands down my favourite experience was the lectures. They covered a broad range of topics: computational physics, neutrinos and particle detectors. The lecturers explained things so well and kindly answered any questions we had. The topics were all fascinating in their own right and made me enjoy physics even more than before. The other aspect I really liked was the carousel where we got a tour of the observatory, participated in a team marshmallow tower challenge, and then finally a lab session on waves. It was really interesting to see the facilities available at Queen Mary at degree-level and to get practical experience of it as well."
"For all those girls who are considering or conflicted about pursuing a career in physics, look no further than the Queen Mary’s Physics Summer School! Some things that I didn’t expect to learn in the summer school, delivered to you in one quick, short blog."
Number 1. "Firstly, the highly in-depth lectures on topics like particle detectors and neutrinos, conveyed by PhD holders, was unexpected to say the least. I formerly believed that the summer school would just reinforce knowledge already learnt in the GCSE physics syllabus, however, we went in a completely different direction and learnt many new things related to physics instead."
Number 2. "Secondly, how to find the frequency in an oscilloscope! In the summer school, we all had an opportunity to use oscilloscopes and had to complete different activities using them. Although my partner and I had faced many difficulties on the way, we had finally, by the end of the session, been able to find some sort of frequency and display it on the screen."
Number 3. "As part of this program, we had some sessions on the lack of women in STEM, particularly physics. We learnt some interesting facts, along with other morbid ones, and understood that even though the number of women in physics is rising, it is still severely unbalanced against the number of men in this sector. However, we ended the sessions off with a positive note that we could change this statistic in the near future by working in STEM!"
Number 4. "Finally, I learnt that there were people who had huge interests in physics and great personalities too! Contrary to the popular belief that going to something like a Physics Summer School immediately makes you a nerd, many people that I made friends with were really fun to hang out with. In fact, I still talk with them to this day!"