In the Dark

Today is the penultimate day of teaching in the Spring Semester at Maynooth University and I’m here in the Computer Lab for the last time. This afternoon’s session is just a drop-in consultation session for Computational Physics students doing their projects and although it has been busier than previous weeks it has not exactly been a hive of activity. The deadline for project submissions is tomorrow afternoon, so I was expecting a bit of a rush at this session, which is the last of its type, and also at my office hour this morning. I did have one student attend this morning, and a couple of others this afternoon, but other than for them it has been quiet.

On the other hand, over a day before the deadline, three students have already submitted their project reports and code. I’m impressed with that, but also a little surprised. I’ve come to expect just-in-time delivery for such things.

Yesterday I did my last particle physics tutorial of the year and followed that immediately afterwards I attended a long session of final-year project talks, from 3pm to just after 6pm. It is obvious that some students find these presentations a bit of an ordeal but it is important to learn how to present your work so such things are part of the rite of passage. It is good for staff to get an overview of the all projects being done in the Department too.

In previous years the final project presentations for students in the Departments of Theoretical Physics and Experimental Physics were done separately, the former having a somewhat smaller audience than the latter. The two previous Departments having merged into a single Department of Physics, this time round we had all the talks together (though spread over two days, yesterday and the Wednesday before). I think the combined sessions worked quite well and we will probably do it this way next year.

After the session of talks there was a small drinks party in the foyer of the Science Building. That was a nice occasion, and it struck me that it would have been the last time this group of students would all meet together until their graduation. Tomorrow I do my last particle physics lecture and it will be the last time I see quite a few of the students in that class until graduation too. They’ve been a nice group to work with, very engaged and easy to interact with. It is a great pleasure to be teaching students who are eager to learn . That’s the aspect of academic life I’ll miss the most when I retire.

This entry was posted on May 7, 2026 at 3:27 pm and is filed under Biographical, Education, Maynooth with tags Computational Physics, Maynooth, Maynooth University. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.