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Physics with European Studies

In October 1977, Valerie Scholes arrived in Sussex to study a new degree: Physics with European Studies (PEur).

This was to be a 4-year degree, with the third year spent abroad, studying her subject (Physics) in her chosen language (German). Thus the Science and European Studies program had it's first student.

As of 1987-1988, we had more than 130 students in similar 4-year courses in Chemistry (CEur, from 1978 with David Walton), Mathematics, and Mathematics with Statistics (MEur and MSEur, from 1979, with James Hirschfeld) and Biology (BEur, from 1979 with several faculty). Engineering was added later.

This important development came about in an interesting way, and I plan to write about this topic based on articles and internal Sussex Reports [1, 2] that I wrote with David Walton, David Smith (Chemistry) and James Hirschfeld (Mathematics) in the late Eighties.

It will be excellent if early PEur students in particular can describe their experiences and recollections of an exciting period in their lives, and I look forward to reading them.

References

1. Scientists and Good Europeans, in University of Sussex Annual Report 1988, pages 14-15 (John Venables)

2. The First ten years of BScEur. Internal University of Sussex Report (1988) 1-25 (J.A. Venables, J.D. Smith and J.W.P. Hirschfeld).