A student performing an experiment on a vacation research placement.

Why Study Physics?

Why study physics?

Physics is the study of the fundamental laws that govern all natural phenomena. As such it pervades every part of the world of science, technology and engineering. Its methods and insights are widely applicable, and its practitioners widely sought.

Physics has rarely been in such an exciting state as it has today. It concerns the challenge to discover the ultimate structure of matter and the universe. It also improves our everyday lives and the world we live in through the development of new technologies.

Studying physics at university will help you fully develop your academic potential, and provide you with a rewarding career that is important to society as a whole. The physics degree programmes at the University of York have been carefully designed to help you achieve that potential and set you along this road.

See the Available Courses section for a list of available undergraduate courses and their respective UCAS codes.

What makes a good physicist?

The key ingredient is a curious, questioning mind.

Physicists deploy a mixture of experimental and analytical skills, and creative flair, but there is no norm. Some have a theoretical bent, others excel as practical or computational investigators. Some are very analytical in their approach to the subject, others more intuitive.

It is for this reason that the Department offers a number of different degree programmes which cover the range of different approaches, although they all retain the same physics core.

Why Study Physics at York?

Why Study Physics at York?

Here are just some of the many reasons why you should choose York to study a degree in Physics:
  • Our teaching quality is second to none; we achieved 24 (out of 24) in the most recent Subject Review, performed by the Quality Assurance Agency
  • We are ranked 3rd out of all UK Physics Departments for overall performance across all seven categories (National Student Survey 2009)
  • 80% of Physics graduates from York find a career after 6 months of graduating – that’s the 3rd highest in the UK (Guardian University Guide 2012)
  • Our research-led teaching is exceptional; staff are at the cutting edge of their fields
  • We have excellent facilities, with new developments opening in 2011, such as the new Astrocampus and the York Plasma Institute
  • We have a friendly, ‘open door’ approach; staff are always available for students
  • We offer flexible course options in both single and joint honours degrees
  • We demonstrate world-leading research expertise in the areas of Condensed Matter Theory, Plasma Physics and Fusion, Quantum Computing, Nanophysics, Nuclear Physics and Nuclear Astrophysics
  • Our students run lively and active Physics and Astronomy Societies

The Department

The Department of Physics occupies a pleasant lakeside location in purpose-built buildings. Lecture theatres, teaching laboratories and the student library, together with staff offices and research laboratories, give on to a communal concourse area with tables, seating, drinks and snack vending machines. A lift and ramps provide access for disabled people to teaching and laboratory areas.

Each year about 100 undergraduates join the Department to pursue single subject or combined courses. There are 29 members of academic staff and about 45 research fellows and graduate students, supported by a skilled technical staff. The Department is small enough that staff and students get to know each other well, yet we are large enough that staff research interests enable the basic physics courses to be augmented by a wide range of specialist option courses and research-related final year projects.

If you would like more details about the Department of Physics, including all current degree programmes, you can download our booklet Undergraduate degree programmes (PDF , 742kb).

Course choice

We offer a wide variety of degree courses in which Physics can be studied on its own (single subject) or in combination with other subjects from other departments (combined). In addition many of our courses can be taken with a Year in Europe.

Modular

The courses are structured on a modular basis. This ensures that you have considerable flexibility to transfer between the various degree schemes up to the end of the first year or into your second year in some cases. You take a total of 360 credit units for a BSc or 480 for a MPhys of which one half are provided by the core units common to all of our courses. A selection of optional physics courses or of modules from other departments give you the opportunity to tailor the course to suit your own interests. They contribute one sixth of the total credits. In the case of major/minor combined courses, the minor subject contributes one-third of the total credits.

Skills

The remaining credits are provided by communication and computing skills modules and by laboratory work and projects. In addition, students can take The Student IT Training programme and Language For All (LFA) courses. The Student IT Training programme is a University-wide course introducing students to wordprocessing, using email and the Internet, and presentation applications on the PC. Both these courses can be taken as part of the York Award.

Flexibility

As an example of flexibility, if you were registered for the single-subject physics course, took the astrophysics options in the first year to broaden your studies, and discovered that you wished to pursue astrophysics in greater depth, then it would be possible to transfer to the Physics with Astrophysics course at the end of the first year. Equally, a transfer may be made into a single-subject course from a combined course. Such changes are possible in most cases at any time in the first year. Transfers within the single subject physics courses e.g. from Physics to Theoretical Physics and vice versa, is possible at any time up to the end of the first year. Transfer from the MPhys course to the BSc course is possible at any time in the first two years.

Vacation Research Scholarships

This scholarship scheme enables a limited number of undergraduates to gain experience of working in a research laboratory during the long vacations. One or two scholarships are awarded per year, and cover six to eight weeks work on a research project. In recent years, the Department has also been successful in winning a number of Nuffield Foundation and EPSRC scholarships, so that in summer 2009 we had a record 19 students doing summer projects with us. Unlike final year projects, a vacation scholarship will be full-time and will allow you to immerse yourself in work which is at the forefront of a particular aspect of physics. In addition to the experience, you will gain a useful item to add to your curriculum vitae whilst the Department will benefit from your contribution. A few examples of research based projects are:

  • Measuring the characteristics of novel magnetic materials - the structures of which have been controlled on an atomic scale
  • Evaluating the performance of newly developed radiation detectors which are central to some aspects of the Nuclear Physics Group's future research programme