With the successful and happy departure of the first cohort of Nuclear Engineering students, we are pleased to welcome our new freshers! As is customary with the start of the academic year, NucSoc always kicks off with a house party and the excellent turnout highlighted the rapid growth of our society.
Alongside this, the first few weeks of the semester involved the iteration of the mentor scheme. After the huge success of last year we were keen to continue with the arrangement. The scheme involves students on the Nuclear Engineering programme being paired with four or five first years with the aim of helping them on both an academic and a social level, whilst also establishing good friendships between the different years.
Next up in the term was the joint social with our sister society Birmingham University Materials Society (BUMS). Beginning at the Duck & Scholar in Shackleton and progressing to Snobs in the city centre, the event was a huge success with a fantastic turnout across all four years of the course.
We then held the first of many movie nights for both our and BUMS members. After some issues with sourcing the most highly requested film (blame the Secretary!) the event was thoroughly enjoyable, with Guardians of the Galaxy proving that the Piña Colada song is definitely one to enjoy with some freshly delivered pizza.
Making the move back to the academic focus of the Society, our next event was the student summer placement talk, with a number of students giving short presentations on the work they conducted over the summer. There were a large number of attendees, with a particularly impressive number of freshers, obviously keen to make a good start to university life. The presentations themselves were, while informal and relaxed, very informative and detailed with subjects ranging from ball bearings to neutron physics and the event was very well received.
BUMS organised our next social “BUMS & NucSoc go Bowling!”, with a strong turnout of undergraduates and postgraduates from across the two societies providing a fantastic social atmosphere.
November has seen the eagerly anticipated social event that is Stamina and a second movie night. However, the biggest event was undoubtedly the NucSoc & BUMS careers fair. Organised by members of both societies there were a large number of companies from a wide range of fields in attendance, such as Culham Centre for Fusion Energy, Doosan Babcock, Frazer-Nash, Jaguar Land Rover, the Manufacturing Technology Company and Tata Steel. With presentations about the opportunities within the companies and talks from academic staff regarding postgraduate study, the event may be the key to a bright future for members of both societies.
The next three events in the NucSoc calendar for the future involve laser tag, the annual Christmas dinner and the extremely successful Materials Ball which, again in affiliation with BUMS, will be held around the middle of the second semester. Striking a balance between both small and large-scale social and academic events, NucSoc continues to expand and thrive throughout the academic year.