[Academic] PH450/550 projects early warning

[Kevin Peter O'Donnell]

Dear all,

I am writing to ask for your help in providing research projects for next year's 4th and 5th year students. The department has responded wonderfully in the past few years to increasing numbers, as shown in the table below:

Projects required = nos of students
                               4th Year                                 5th Year                                 Projects offered
2011/12                32                                           9                                              48
2012/13                51                                           10                                           66
2013/14                55                                           24                                           107

On these figures, we more than doubled the project availability in 2 years. Thanks to everyone who helped, but especially to the 8 or so staff members who supplied 2/3 of the titles. The 77 projects actually completed last year are detailed in the attached spreadsheet.

Next year the predicted student numbers are:

2014/15                Up to 83 expected           31 expected

which represents an overall increase of  41% over last year by my arithmetic.

Since we have some unallocated titles, we do not need to increase availability by quite such a large margin;  nearly all 5th year students will continue on the same projects. But we do need to make some additions to the list for incoming 4th years (up 51% or so). As a rough estimate, each academic member of staff needs to suggest one additional project title.

Timothy Briggs and I hope to assemble the project booklet at the beginning of September, for distribution to students in the week before start of term. By that stage we will need complete one-page proposals of new projects on the standard form. 

Meanwhile, can I ask you each to consider how you can contribute to next year's project provision, in one of the following ways:

1. Offer a new project title. Deadline end of this month: email to me or Tim.

2. If you have a continuing project,  repeat it for a new 4th year student (doubling up across years). Deadline end of August.

3. Double up within 4th year; offer a project to a pair of students. IOP rules now allow this, although we've had similar working arrangements for a couple of years.

4. If you are a post-doc who is accredited for PhD supervision, offer a project as first supervisor. Your slavedriver will be expected to take the role of second supervisor, so ask them first. Deadline end of August.

In summary, growth brings problems. I'm confident that we can solve this one.

Have a good summer,


Kevin


Kevin Peter O'Donnell
Professor of Semiconductor Spectroscopy
SUPA Physics Department
Strathclyde University
Glasgow G4 0NG
Scotland, UK.

email: k.p.odonnell at strath.ac.uk
web: http://ssd.phys.strath.ac.uk/index.php/Main_Page
tel: 0141 548 3365/3458/2309




 
The University of Strathclyde is a charitable body, registered in Scotland, with registration number SC015263.


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