Extracurricular Activities

There are a number of seminars of astronomical interest within various Cambridge departments. Students are encouraged to attend seminars, although the large number of possibilities implies that students need to be selective in those they attend. The Institute of Astronomy has two regular series of talks, one being the Wednesday lunchtime talks at 12:30pm and usually combines 2 half-hour talks on specialised research topics.

The second series is the Colloquia on Thursdays during term time at 4pm. The Colloquia are hour-long talks that generally contain a larger review element, as well as presenting latest scientific results. All IoA students are strongly encouraged to attend the Colloquia weekly.

In addition, the Cavendish Astrophysics Seminar takes place at 11:30am on Fridays, and informal lunchtime talks are held at DAMTP .

Commitments to lecture courses mean that it is essential to be selective about which talks to attend. However, in addition to the benefits of attending a talk containing relevant subject matter, critical assessment of a number of talks offers the opportunity to gain direct experience of what does and does not work when presenting material to a non-specialist audience. Such experience is likely to be of direct benefit when preparing the project oral presentation to the Examiners in the Easter Term of Part III.

For full details of the all the Talks and Seminars on offer at the University, click here.