Outside of Sporcle

[Fusty]

 I've just applied for university and was wondering what universities people go to and if they do (I'm not sure what the version is in America, but I'm guessing places like Yale, Harvard etc. are the versions of Oxford, Cambridge and UCL). Do we all study what we're good at in Sporcle (e.g. I'm super at geography, especially cities but I cant do it at school.)

[Mic747]

I am a first-year student at Twente University in Enschede, Netherlands. I do a technological study with a lot of physics and math. Science is probably not my best category (that would be literature, JFF or Geography) but it's certainly not my worst either.

[Anderson(Blackhawks65)]

I'm currently at Sporcle University, but when I'm older I want to go to University of Minnesota or Harvard, where my cousins went.

[RedBengalTiger (Funnyfavorer101)]

I don't go to college, but I want to go to Princeton when I do. My grandpa went there, and it's near where a friend of mine (and my mother) used to live before they came here.

Sporcle doesn't correlate much with what I'm learning and plan to learn. As far as school goes, I excel in all of my studies, but I don't do a lot of math, science, writing, music, etc. here on Sporcle. I mostly just hang around the Literature and JFF sections because I find most of the math, science, and language quizzes boring, and the music section is completely overrun with pop culture and modern music - my worst enemies.

When I'm older, I plan to be a mechanical engineer with sides jobs as an illustrator, jazz musician, and writer, but I haven't found many things of those interests on Sporcle that I like.

[TheCleverone]

I'd prefer not to answer your first question, as I prefer my privacy to some extent. Your second question interests me, though. I'm a geography lover on Sporcle, but I took history when I was at GSCE level, sacrificing geography (even though I love science, and especially physics, as I am an aspiring astrophysicist, I've got no interest in studying stuff like global warming), as the GCSE course was on European 20th Century history (I think the exact units I took were "International Rivalry 1900-14", "The Peace Settlement, 1918-1929", "International Relations "1929-39", "Germany 1919-1939" and "British Society "1931-51"), something that fascinates me. However, I play lots of Geography quizzes, and  barely any History quizzes. Even as an aspiring astrophysicist, I don't play many science quizzes. Ironically, I curate in language, despite my best subject by far being math(s) (I had the GCSE under my belt before I'd reached my teens).

[Fusty]

 Ironically, I curate in language, despite my best subject by far being math(s) (I had the GCSE under my belt before I'd reached my teens).

 

You had a GCSE before you reached your teens?? I got my maths gcse at 16 (A*) because my school wouldn't let me do it any earlier. I also share a love of astrophysics (I've applied in that topic, I'm not saying where though). Anybody go to oxbridge here (oxford or cambridge)?

[TheCleverone]

Yup, maths A* in Year 7 (first year secondary and 6th Grade in America). I could really have got an A* in year 6 (5th grade), or even year 5 had I been allowed, but my parents wanted me to have a social life, and I was also too into my sports at the time - I was playing at least 4 or 5 sports at the time. I still play tennis in my county league for my team.

[Fusty]

On Saturday, 19 October 2013 18:22:27 UTC+1, TheCleverone wrote:

Yup, maths A* in Year 7 (first year secondary and 6th Grade in America). I could really have got an A* in year 6 (5th grade), or even year 5 had I been allowed, but my parents wanted me to have a social life, and I was also too into my sports at the time - I was playing at least 4 or 5 sports at the time. I still play tennis in my county league for my team.

 

Wow, and what did you do afterwards, further maths or stats (or something else)..

[Hullabaloo]

I finished a Law degree a few years ago. Not many English law quizzes on Sporcle, surprisingly.

[TheCleverone]

Stats, which wasted a year of my education, and then A-Level (with mech and stats as my two optional modules with my cores) 

[Fusty]

On Saturday, 19 October 2013 19:47:55 UTC+1, TheCleverone wrote:

Stats, which wasted a year of my education, and then A-Level (with mech and stats as my two optional modules with my cores).

 

I'm on a levels now, one of the best colleges in the north west (yipee) and I'm admittedly kind of a geek, but we all are on Sporcle, science and language being the geekiest categories. I'm not saying others aren't, but they are the most. 

[Quizmaster91]

I study Business Communication, which consists mostly of social sciences and language. On Sporcle though, the categories I play most are Geography and JFF.

[Cryptus]

I'm currently studying physics at Royal Holloway, but Geography and Music tend to be my most frequented categories on Sporcle. Science is a category I visit more frequently than others, but there doesn't tend to be many degree-level physics quizzes around (maybe I should do some!). 

[Fusty]

On Sunday, 20 October 2013 14:21:45 UTC+1, Cryptus wrote:

I'm currently studying physics at Royal Holloway, but Geography and Music tend to be my most frequented categories on Sporcle. Science is a category I visit more frequently than others, but there doesn't tend to be many degree-level physics quizzes around (maybe I should do some!). 

 

I'll probably have a few done after uni, wont get many plays though. 

[beforever]

I'm doing an M.Phil in Biological Anthropological Science at Cambridge. It is actually like the Harvard of the UK, and I get intimidated s***less everyday by how smart everyone around me is.

But anywho... although science is a big part of my life, it's perhaps more the biological sciences I have an interest in more than the hard sciences.

And as for my Sporcle interests matching up with my real-life interests, every subcategory I curate or have curated before reflects pretty much one part of my total variation of interests. I curate/I've curated City, Anatomy, A Song of Ice and Fire, Vocabulary, Typing, Numbers, Book and Emmy.

Besides TV series, compared to a lot of other users, I seem to be quite unknowledgeable in Entertainment-type things, such as Movies, Music and Sports...  which goes to show how much of a life I don't have. :(

[Mateo56]

@Fusty

The Physics community seems pretty well represented here. Myself - I'm 3rd year of a masters at Warwick University doing pure physics. HOWEVER, when applying I made several applications to courses entitled "Astrophysics" or "Physics and/with Astronomy" or something of that ilk.

In the end I ended up at Warwick just as its gravitas within the UK was probably higher than the others I applied to (for the record, Exeter, Edinburgh, Bristol, UCL). The nature of most physics university courses (whilst often quite inflexible in first year) is that you can choose modules to suit your own preferences - so as you're clearly very astronomy orientated you could take several modules aimed directly at that. A lot of other topics in a Physics degree (i.e Mechanics, Relativity and to differing extents Electromagnetism, Quantum etc) are essentially prerequisites to the theory you'd be studying in Astronomy anyway, so you may not find an awful lot of difference between studying a specific Astrophysics degree and taking a Physics degree where you orientate your choices towards Astronomy.

As to where you go, really you just have to do a bit of research into where the main interests of the physics departments at each university lie. Warwick whilst having an active Astronomy research group is firmly embedded in solid state physics, which I can assume is not your main interest. However the other 4 above (and many more, Oxbridge included (obviously, considering their alumnae)) are much more astronomy orientated in their research and courses. I fact I was awfully close to accepting an offer from Bristol to do Physics and Astronomy (or something very similarly named), but in the end made a rather shallow decision based on UK league table positions.

I'd also recommend going to see anywhere you're thinking of applying to, as it's really not a good idea to realise you just don't like the look of somewhere (or its setting) once you've started your course.

I hope this is of some sort of help, and feel free to let Sporcle-related conversation resume!

[goseaward]

there doesn't tend to be many degree-level physics quizzes around (maybe I should do some!).

Please do!!  I think physics (and, really, lots of sciences in general) are hard to write quizzes about, because they tend towards process-type questions rather than unit-of-information-type questions.

And feel free to email me with any physics quizzes you create/run across that you think deserve a CP.

I did my Ph.D. in astrophysics & work in the field now, by the way; I don't know as much about the university/graduate school-level programs in the UK (which are structured very differently from the US) but I'm also happy to answer questions via email if anyone has them.

[Fusty]

I've visited a lot of universities in search of good physics with astronomy or astrophysics courses (I didn't bother with oxbridge, I'm happy to say I'm not that smart. However I did ask my cousin who goes to cambridge but he didn't really know much about other courses). I did visit Warwick but it seemed particularly boring and looking back at the website now, there are no straight astrophysics courses, the three listed only have a short amount of astrophysics.

 

The university I applied to has a single astrophysics course and it wont bore me with rubbish. The facilities for astrophysics also looked great.

[DesertSpartan]

I love Physics, but my most recent class was in 1981 and I never had a Science Major.  The most I know about Physics is the following quote from Vincent Gambini (My Cousin Vinny):

"Perhaps the laws of physics cease to exist on your stove. Were these magic grits? Did you buy them from the same guy who sold Jack his beanstalk beans?"

Most of my schooling and my current career have dealt with Accounting, Audit, Gambling, Compliance, Rules, Regulations and Laws.  Not great demand or interest for these in Sporcle, outside of The Rules of Fight Club and The 8 Simple Rules for dating Kaley Cuoco and John Ritter's other TV daughter.

I do not make quizzes related to my job or education because of lack of interest in legalese and the rest of what I do have studied and because I get enough in those areas through work, journals and CPE.

I try to create quizzes in a variety of areas, but have mostly created sports and music quizzes.  I hope to create more Literature, Movie and History quizzes going forward.  

I find most sporcle Science quizzes to be either too advanced or to basic for me, but I do like sciences, although not so much math outside of statistical analysis and trends.

[goseaward]

"Perhaps the laws of physics cease to exist on your stove. Were these magic grits? Did you buy them from the same guy who sold Jack his beanstalk beans?"

Puts me in mind of the Einstein quote: "When a man sits with a pretty girl for an hour, it seems like a minute. But let him sit on a hot stove for a minute and it's longer than any hour. That's relativity."

[vikZ]

I'm studying actuarial science with a math minor.
I'm curating the logic subcategory so yeah what I learn is really relevant to the category I curate. I also know quite a good deal of computer science, and I've taken a couple of philosophy courses that solely covers logic (the course is called Logic) so yeah it definitely ties in with what I do on Sporcle.

I've made a few quizzes based on my studies too. The most high-end one has only 4 plays, but I'm not surprised since it requires really good knowledge of finances It's based on option spreads, which are combinations of calls and puts. Calls and puts are stock options. You need a good knowledge of all that to be able to get any correct answers. I plan on sharing the quiz with other people in my program though.

[DesertSpartan]

5 plays now, I got 3 right and should have come up with 4 correct answers.  It is a long time since I did anything with options, but my best friend was an energy trader and his whole life was Black-Scholes.

[vikZ]

Thanks for playing!
Haha oh Black-Scholes. I had to write my 3rd SOA exam this summer and 90% of the exam is about Black-Scholes. Now it's engrained in my head. At least until I write the next exam.