Research student

 

Research Student

I had been working for about 5 years when I obtained a one year secondment to obtain a masters degree. After working in information science for about two and a half years I had been seconded to work on my own project in Hard Surface Cleaning division. The original idea was to gain experience as a consumer rather than a supplier of information and then return to Information Science. I found that practical work was interesting, after a while I joined an exciting project and my secondment extended to become indefinite.

However I was surrounded by people who, if more senior, all had research degrees. I thought that to get ahead I needed extra qualification. After various negotiations I went to Liverpool College of Technology ( now John Moores University) . This was convenient because I could travel in every day. Alec who led a group at the college was well respected by Unilever, my employer. However he said he was too busy himself to be my supervisor but instead I should work with Duncan, a senior lecturer. That became an issue in that I was the first ( and as it turned out only ) research student with Duncan who was far more interested in writing textbooks.

I agreed a project with Unilever and that also became an issue. I was to investigate the properties of fluorocarbon surfactants which were to be made by another scientist in Unilever. This became a big problem when his management changed along with his priorities and the synthesis work expected never happened.

I soon found myself with a rather uninterested supervisor and without the chemicals I expected. This wasn’t a huge problem because I had the experience and maturity to decide I must develop my own project using commercially available chemicals. My work for Unilever had been on adsorbed films ( films of up to a few molecules thickness on surfaces) so I was able to turn towards the adsorption properties of chemicals I could obtain.

I found the life very interesting. On a full salary I was quite well off compared with fellow students. Two were raising young families on meagre grants. Our laboratory at the college was a room containing four with a partitioned off area in the corner where Duncan wrote. It had a largish central multipurpose bench with three others around the periphery of the room. These accommodated Howard and Sid ( both doing gas kinetics with large glass rigs) Malcolm at one side doing electro kinetics while I had the bench by the window. For all social purposes we included Graham who worked in a lab on his own. These ranged from tea breaks to  various outside events ( which usually involved pubs ) .We were next door to Alec’s group of some half dozen students.

I got on very well with my fellow students. Howard and Sid were like me married and a bit older than the norm. Malcolm got married during my time at the college. Like Graham he had moved into the research group immediately on graduating. We had almost no contact with the main body of the college. Our social grouping intermittently included Phil, a former Liverpool research student now a junior lecturer.

At that time the college was financed by the city council and was very poorly equipped. For example electronic calculators were becoming common but the college had mechanical ones which must have been prewar ( certainly obsolescent ). There was one interesting loophole in the financial arrangements We could spend up to £5 ( significant then ) on a petty cash budget with few questions asked. All kinds of things ( such as lab kettle and tools ) found their way into the lab via petty cash. I learned to go to suppliers wearing a lab coat muttering I was  from the “corpy” ( ie. Liverpool Corporation ) and get a discount. I kept in close touch with the Unilever lab where I had been working ( I was still an employee) and frequently scrounged equipment from our well equipped industrial lab both for myself and the others. I was able to rescue an obsolete projection microscope and modify it to measure contact angles. Suitably modified this became an important tool in my work.

I very much enjoyed the freedom from 9 to 5. Often I would finish in time for a short walk into the city to browse in bookshops. With Annette also working I had the surplus cash to able to buy books ( mainly paperbacks ) for the first time in my life..

After my formal secondment ended I worked weekends until my son was born. I also worked in my holidays one summer when some equipment I needed became available.  The interest and work in raising small children ( his first sister came after 20 months ) meant I put off writing my thesis. I put it off until seeing Alec at Unilever one day when he rather sharply told me to get on with it. He was in a senior position by that time in Unilever so his instruction was powerful. By that time I found writing up immensely tedious after several years since the experimental work as I was constantly referring to my laboratory notes. I did the write up in the evenings after the children were in bed.. I also had to submit the thesis typed so I had to write a fair copy of my manuscript for my typist. I used a typist at the lab who was used to scientific work and she was excellent.

A feature was the presentation all research students made to other research students and staff. I tried to make mine more entertaining by also demonstrating how I was using my work in a practical application. I recall using vivid blue dyed liquid on white tiles for best visual effect.

The final step was to submit to questioning on the work by an external expert. Both Alex and Duncan joined this session. This wasn’t very difficult as I knew much more about my particular project in all its details than these experts with their vastly wider but more general knowledge.

After all this I was awarded the degree of Master in Philosophy ( Philosophy is the jargon for scientific research ). This was a very unusual degree as most go on to doctorate level which is just the same but more of it. In fact I have never come across another similar qualification. Technically because the then Polytechnic was not a degree awarding institution I got mine from the National Council for Academic Awards. I’m slightly sorry now that I didn’t put in the extra time for a doctorate and also that I didn’t receive the award in person because I was reluctant to take the day off work. To be frank the main result is it helps to impress on a business card, as I found when I moved on from Unilever.

Sadly Howard died recently but I am still in ( distant ) contact with the others. Sid now lives in Florida in a beachside house on the Gulf of Mexico. We were able to visit a few years ago. Malcolm lives in Cumbria near Sellafield where he worked until he retired. Graham left science completely and spent his career at the Royal Mint in S Wales ( Graham suffered a big blow when his college supervisor died during his work ). Overall I enjoyed my time a lot and I’m pleased I made the effort.