Lauren Eastman
University:
University of Southampton
Placement:
EoSphere
Role:
Modelling an Antenna Tracking a Satellite Across the Sky
“I wanted to challenge myself by stepping out of my comfort zone, joining a new team, and building my confidence while integrating into a professional environment.”
Describe a typical day:
A typical day for me involved working on a Python model of an antenna tracking a satellite through the sky, which often required a lot of programming, drawing geometrical diagrams and learning new mathematical techniques to model rotations. I frequently chatted with my supervisor when I needed assistance, and we had daily team calls, which provided interesting insights into the world of installing and working with satellite antennas - and occasionally featured some lively discussion about football.
Why did you decide to do a placement?
I wanted to gain work experience in a Physics-related field, and to further advance my coding skills which can be applied in my Masters research project and future PhD. I was also eager to explore the different career paths my Physics degree can offer, to identify which types of roles I might like to pursue in the future. Additionally, I wanted to challenge myself by stepping out of my comfort zone, joining a new team, and building my confidence while integrating into a professional environment.
How do you think doing a placement has benefited you for the future?
I now have valuable work experience in a field related to my degree which I can put on my CV, along with evidence of my Python programming abilities beyond university modules. This placement has also massively boosted my confidence in my ability to take on a new and unfamiliar project and succeed. It has reinforced my perseverance when faced with complex and challenging tasks. I have gained insights into different job roles, helping me identify careers that I’d be happy to pursue after university.
What are your next steps?
For my Masters I am doing a year of research in Astronomy, which involves a lot of Python data analysis, and I look forward to applying my new Python knowledge and plotting skills to this part of my degree. I will also soon start applying for PhDs, either in Astronomy or General Relativity, and I am confident that the experience gained from this placement will aid me in these applications.
A Quote from
EoSphere
:
What impressed you about the placement student you hosted?
"We really enjoyed having Lauren join our team over the summer. She got on top of the technical and software side of things really quickly and worked well with everyone in our team. We mostly worked virtually, which included our daily Teams catchups which are usually a mixture of work discussions and general chat. Lauren had a good positive approach to the project and she’s created a useful tool for understanding the factors which cause our ground stations to lose signal when downloading data from orbiting satellites."
