First Taste of Real Scientific Research

Okay, TMA02 for my current course Astrophysics, was successfully completed and pinged to my tutor via the enigma, that is, the electronic TMA service with the Open University.

Actually, I like the fact that I can just upload my coursework as an electronic file and send it, without having the last-minute scramble to the post office, several days before the cut off date.  Life is difficult enough, without having to give up 48-72hrs of prep time to the damn, inefficient and utterly unreliable Royal Mail service; so sending my work as 'naughts and ones', via the phone-line is much easier and a lot less stressful.

I think that one of my better decisions in the recent-past, was to anticipate having to send in TMA's as an electronic document, by starting to learn and use Latex in my coursework.  I started doing so as early as my first level 1 maths course MST121, Using Mathematics.  It wasn't necessarily needed; and I believe that I was in a minority, doing so.  However, taking so much time to write out my answers using LaTex, at such an early stages, allowed me to practice and become adept at using the system; thus, writing level 3 physics TMA's and research or post graduate  mathematics scripts, has not become prohibitively slow and cumbersome.

It's worked fairly well, as I've now committed many of the keyboard short-cuts to long term memory, and I can 'knock out' an in-line formula in seconds, rather than tens of minutes or hours.  Any advantage at this level, needs to be grasped firmly, as the study material is difficult enough!

I say LaTex; but actually, I cheat by using Mathtype which is a 'what you see is what you get' equation editor; but it is fantastic and does a really professional job.  I can't recommend it highly enough.

Anyway, having completed TMA02, I now have my sights rising to meet the next important step in my scientific journey this year.  I am due to complete my first piece of real research within astrophysics.

I don't know all of the details yet; but I do know that I will be crunching large amounts of astrophysical data that have been collected from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) archive.  I will then use this data and proceed to devise a project concerning the optical spectroscopy of previously unstudied quasars; a prospect that will make my recent hard slog and study  of stellar evolution and nucleosynthesis, well worth the effort.