Course summary

Physics is an exciting subject which seeks answers to the biggest questions, covering everything in our universe, from the building blocks of matter to the vastness of the cosmos. Employers seeking physics graduates include academic institutions, government research organisations and industry, including aerospace and defence, education, energy, engineering, instrumentation, manufacturing, oil and gas, science, communication, space exploration and telecommunications. Many physics graduates pursue a career outside physics, for instance in consultancy, IT, the environmental industry, financial services, the legal sector, transport and utilities. Based at our superb seafront campus close to the magnificent Gower Peninsula, you will have the opportunity to study an exciting and flexible range of modules which could include astronomy and cosmology, electromagnetism, atomic physics, the frontiers of nuclear physics, the quantum world and climate physics. In your Foundation year, you will study introductory modules in optics and wave motion, electricity and magnetism, atoms and nuclei and bulk and thermal physics alongside mathematics modules in fundamental calculus and algebra. You may also follow some modules in complementary subjects such as introductory computer programming and environmental and natural sciences. Students are assigned a personal tutor within the physics department and will participate in small-group tutorial sessions throughout the programme. Following their successful completion of the foundation year, students may then follow any pathway through the BSc or MPhys courses, with all options available to them. Across all teaching, after this point there is no differentiation between an F301 student and any other. Our facilities include: IT and teaching rooms, scanning probe microscopy (SPM) systems; scanning near-field optical microscopy (SNOM) systems; laser spectroscopy systems based upon fluorescence and Raman spectroscopy; atomic force microscopes (AFM); and Beowulf computer cluster, with 130 CPU cores connected by a low-latency infiniband network. As a physics student, you will also benefit from exceptional project supervision, small group teaching, and opportunities for summer studentships and projects at the CERN Particle Physics Laboratory. Our notable Physics alumni include Professor Lyn Evans, leader of the Large Hadron Collider project at CERN, while Professor Peter Higgs, Swansea University Honorary Fellow and Physics Nobel Prize winner, proposed the Boson particle, and has strong links with the department. “The Physics staff were always very supportive; the lecturers enthusiastic and are good at explaining difficult concepts eloquently. There was a real sense that they thoroughly enjoyed teaching us. Through my degree, I was able to successfully apply to the NHS Scientist Training Programme, a highly competitive graduate scheme through which I will eventually become a fully qualified Medical Physicist.” - Guy Drabble, Physics graduate