• Question: what did you study in university?

    Asked by 828sptm42 to Ollie on 5 Mar 2018.
    • Photo: Alexander Burke

      Alexander Burke answered on 5 Mar 2018:

      I studied maths at university. It’s actually quite an interesting story. When I was 13 or 14 I wasn’t very strong at maths, in fact, I was actually in the lowest class in my school. I reckon that this was due to:

      1. I was always shown how to do problems and not “why” I was doing the problems.
      2. My teacher didn’t have a huge amount of faith in my ability.

      It was only when I was 15/16 years old I actually started really enjoying maths. This was because I started to find out (and figure out for myself) exactly where things came from. Since then I fell in love with the subject and decided to study it at the university. When I was in my fourth year at university, I studied a course called: Geometry of General Relativity (the maths behind bendy things) and really enjoyed it. I then pursued a PhD in gravitational wave astronomy and here I am now!

      The best advice I can give you; stick in school, It’s worth it.

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