Independent Study

Physics 598 and 599 are the fourth year research project courses that are either currently required or soon to be required of all students graduating from honours or majors BSc programs in the Department of Physics and Astronomy.

Physics 598

Physics 598 is the full year research course that is required of all honours physics students, although under some circumstances two Physics 599 courses can be substituted for Physics 598. Note also that majors students may also request consent of the department to complete a Physics 598 course.
Prerequisites: PHYS 443, 449, 455 and consent of the Department.

Physics 599

Physics 599 is the single term research course required of all physics majors and honours astrophysics students, and soon to be required of Majors Astrophysics students. Physics 599 may be repeated two or more times for credit as it is a decimalised course, with 599.01 and 599.02 corresponding to experimental projects, 599.03 and 599.04 corresponding to theoretical/computational projects, and 599.05 and 599.06 corresponding to reading projects.
Prerequisite: Consent of the department.

To Register for an Independent Project

All of the fourth-year physics project courses require consent of the department before a student is able to register in the course. In order to receive consent of the department to register, a student must complete the following steps:

1. You must first find a supervisor within the department (regular, emeritus, or adjunct). See the research page for information on the types of research done in the department and the faculty members involved in each research area. You may also contact the relevant course coordinators for assistance.

For the 2010/2011 academic year, contact:

• Physics 598 and Physics 599 (Fall & Winter): B.C. Sanders, Science B 303 (or Lucia Wang, SB 306 in his absense)

2. Once you have found a supervisor who is willing to take you on, you must work with the supervisor to develop a research project and plan.

3. Complete the registration form (available on the PHYS 598/599 course website) which contains contact information for both you and your proposed supervisor, the course and semester you wish to register in, your project title, and a maximum 1 page project description. After submitting the registration form, it will generate an email to your supervisor for approval; the supervisor's approval goes by email to the course coordinator for approval, and thence to the department for authorization.

4. If approved by the department, you will then receive notification that you are authorized to register for the course. You must then log-on through the normal University of Calgary on-line precedures and register for the relevant PHYS 598 or PHYS 599.0x course in People-Soft as you would for any other course.

5. The marking scheme for each course is slightly different, and will be included in the relevant course information sheet. Please ensure that you discuss these expectations with the relevant course coordinator at the time that you request permission to enroll in the course, and stay in contact with the coordinator to ensure that you are completing the necessary requirements for the course.

See the PHYS 598/599 course website for full details.