The King's Undergraduate Research Fellowship (KURF) is a programme that provides undergraduate students an opportunity to partake in academic research. It is a paid internship and participants that have completed the award would be honoured with the King's Experience Research Award. The programme was made possible by the generosity of King's alumni.
I first heard of KURF at an academic event hosted by the Maxwell Society. This event was part of the series of student-led lectures whereby in the first week of every month, up to four students across the department could volunteer to give a physics lecture on any topic they desired. It was a great initiative by the society to encourage physics exploration beyond the classroom as well as help sharpen students’ presentation skills.
During the lecture, a fourth-year student named Francesco decided to use his slot to share various platforms on which undergraduate students could apply for internships in physics. I managed to speak to him about it further after the event, and that was when he really encouraged me to apply to KURF. That night, I looked up KURF and was led to a blog post by a King’s alumnus who highlighted its benefits.
While I made a mental note to apply for KURF at the time, personal issues got in the way (will elaborate more on this in a future post) and I had completely forgotten about it. Fortunately, amid the revision period, I happened to be checking my Outlook inbox and an email from the physics department caught my eye – apparently the KURF application deadline was extended to give students more time to apply, as everyone had been affected by the recent rise in covid-19 cases.
The deadline was 11:59pm that night! I immediately got started on my application. To my surprise, the process was very easy and straightforward – you just had to:
Go over the list of projects offered in your faculty (in my case, it was the Natural and Mathematical Sciences Faculty).
Fill in your details ie. name, k-number, email, etc.
Specify your chosen project by its given code.
Answer a series of written questions. If I remember correctly, they were along the lines of:
Why do you want this fellowship?
Why are you interested in the KURF scheme?
Outline your suitability for this fellowship.
(Disclaimer: this was for the 2019 application – I am unsure of how much it has changed since then)
In my application, I chose the project with Dr James Millen, head of the Levitated Nanophysics Group at King's and my second-year Quantum Mechanics lecturer. I chose his project because:
Out of all the projects on the list, his stood out – rather than a purely physical or mathematical project, his was a collaboration between the Sciences and the Arts.
I found the bridge fascinating as on top of constructing an ion trap, I would have the chance of giving creative input.
The main objective of the project was to produce an exhibition piece out of the ion trap, for a King’s festival. I found it exciting to participate in a project of such level of significance to the university.
I was keen to work with James as he is a very good lecturer and science communicator (I was convinced by the 2019 Cumberland Lodge weekend seminar and his second-semester lectures on Quantum Mechanics).
I was also interested in the public engagement element of the project – I wanted to improve my scientific communication skills.
I remember the adrenaline rush I experienced as I submitted my application a minute before the deadline. A few weeks later (amid the examination period), I received an email from KURF informing me that my application was successful (to my surprise!). Despite the happy news, my reaction was somewhat mixed – I was happy with the outcome, but I couldn’t shake off worries regarding the covid-19 situation. This was at the start of summer when it first peaked. After corresponding with James and consulting some close family and friends, I decided to hope for the best and accepted the fellowship.
James informed me that KURF had compressed the project period from 8 weeks (running any time between June and September) to only 4 weeks (the entirety of September). The purpose was to give them more time to monitor the covid-19 situation. With this arrangement, I was very hopeful that things would get better by then.
Unfortunately, I was let down three weeks later when KURF notified me of their decision to only retain projects that were doable remotely, considering the rise in cases. This meant that mine was cancelled. In the midst of the disappointment, James expressed that he would like me to take on the project the following year if I was still interested and told me to remind him to talk about it with KURF. He stayed in touch that summer – every now and then I (and some other students) would receive emails from him. He forwarded links to online seminars and programmes he thought we’d be interested in.
Fast forward to the start of the 2020/2021 academic year, I found myself emailing James about the project and the rest is history – I get to participate in the same project I was accepted for the year before with some minor changes (we are unsure if the King’s festival is still in the works; the project is running for 7 weeks; and of course, the new covid-19 safety regulations!). There are no words to describe how I immensely grateful I am for this opportunity. After all the detours, I am finally able to carry on my dream project.
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