MY WEEK IN UCC Aisling's TY Work Experience on Campus
Hi guys, my name is Aisling and I'm a TY student in Christ King Secondary School. This week I had my work experience placement in UCC Visitors' Centre. This is a little project I made on my time here and the things I learned!
MY WEEK IN UCC Transition Year work experience in UCC Visitors' Centre
WHAT'S IN THIS ISSUE
GEORGE BOOLE!
George Boole was born in Lincoln, England in 1815. He was a M O N D A Y self-taught mathematical genius and received very little formal education. He taught himself lots of languages such as Day 1 French, Greek, German etc. He was the inventor of Boolean algebra which is the basis of modern digital computer logic. He was the first professor of mathematics in Queens College Cork when it first opened. Today, the library, underground lecture theatres and the Boole centre for research in informatics are named after him. In 2016, a bust was erected in his honour, It’s said to be good luck to rub his nose! George Boole died in 1864 due to pneumonia. He caught a chill after being caught in a thunderstorm. His wife believed that he should take cold baths and be wrapped in wet sheets in order to cure him. He died 9 days later on December 9th.
MY WEEK IN UCC Transition Year work experience in UCC Visitors' Centre
The Honan Plaza Today I visited the Honan Chapel. It was paid for by Isabella
DAY 2
Honan. She never married and had no children so when she died, she left £40,000 to Queens College Cork. The type of architecture is known as “Hiberno-Romanesque”. This means it looks older than it actually is. The chapel was built by James Finbarr McMullen. One of the main focal points of the chapel is the beautiful mosaic floor that features the zodiac signs and different animals. James Oppenheimer, English Catholic Jew from Liverpool, designed the floor of the chapel and put special emphasis on the theme “The River of Life” with 33 fish swimming up the altar symbolising the 33 years that Jesus lived. The stained glass windows in the church were designed by Sarah Purser and Harry Clarke. One window to take note of is the one that features St. Gobnait, the patron saint of bees and beekeepers. When the chapel was being built in 1916, the stained glass window was being brought down from Dublin and was kept close to the GPO that was being shelled. Miraculously, it arrived in Cork unharmed.
TUESDAY
MY WEEK IN UCC Transition Year work experience in UCC Visitors' Centre
W E D N E S D A Y
D a y 3
THE QUAD The Main Quadrangle in UCC is very different, instead of having 4 sides it only has 3. People believe this was either because the college ran out of money when building the college or because cholera was widespread across Ireland and they thought having fresh air blowing through the Quad would blow any disease away. There’s a lot of superstitions regarding The Quad. It is said you will fail your exams if you walk across the quad. As I said, there are 3 sides to The Quad, the West wing, the East wing and the North wing. In 1862, there was a fire in the West wing. The whole building was almost destroyed. A £150 reward was offered and still remains unclaimed to this day. The president lived in the East Wing with the Vice Presidents house at the end of the wing.
TRANSITION YEAR WORK EXPERIENCE IN UCC VISITORS' CENTRE
MY WEEK IN UCC The Crawford Observatory was completed in 1880. William Crawford donated £1000 towards its construction and the purchase of the astronomical instruments. The telescopes in the observatory were invented by Sir Howard Grubb, an optical designer from Dublin. In the observatory, there are 3 telescopes, The Siderostatic telescope, the smallest of the 3, The Equatorial Telescope and The Transit Circle. The Siderostatic telescope follows stars automatically to counteract the Earth’s rotation and give an image. The Equatorial Telescope was intended to provide photos of sections in the northern sky. It was entered in a competition in Paris in 1887 and won first place, beating the telephone, which came seventh The Transit Circle measures the position of the stars, much like The Siderostatic Telescope. The Transit Circle is located on the Meridian Line. This is an imaginary line that runs from North to South. UCC is the only University in Ireland that has a fully functioning observatory on campus and is still used by departments such as physics and anyone studying astrology.
THURSDAY My 4th Day
The Crawford Observatory
MY WEEK IN UCC TRANSITION YEAR WORK EXPERIENCE IN UCC VISITORS' CENTRE
QUEEN VICTORIA STATUE Friday Last Day
The statue of Queen Victoria is a very special part of the UCC. It depicts 30-year-old Queen Victoria holding a staff and an orb. It has never left the College except on one occasion, when Queen Elizabeth came to visit in 1849. The statue stayed on top of The Aula Maxima until 1849, when it was replaced by a statue of St. Finbarr, the patron saint of UCC. The statue of Queen Victoria was taken down at night. Scaffolding was put up to make it look like tiles on the roof were being fixed as they didn’t want the students to know. The statue had a rope put around its neck, was taken down and buried in the president’s garden. It stayed buried until 1995 when it was resurrected for the anniversary. It was in perfect condition after being wrapped in blankets and straw, however, the staff had been broken off and the top of the orb had been damaged. The statue now stands in a bullet proof glass casing in The Graduates Association room in UCC.