Education - Patrick Sandoval

The Specialist Program

The University of Toronto offers three types of programs, one of which is not widely used in most universities. Aside from offering majors and minors in different fields of study, they offer a specialist, which is often compared as double major. The curriculums for these type of programs are more demanding and they tend to be more selective at the moment of accepting students into the program. It's usually the case that the course load for these programs is so heavy that you automatically qualify for other minors, in my case I minored in mathematics.

Skill Diversification

A degree in astrophysics provides a diverse skill set that extends beyond traditional research. For instance, the work often involves developing efficient pipelines to process large volumes of data, frequently in the form of images. It also includes creating graphical user interfaces (GUIs) to streamline data reduction processes and using APIs or web scrapers to access information from various star and galaxy catalogs. Moreover, as part of the research, we are constantly learning new coding techniques and staying up to date with the latest software packages, which further enhances our technical and analytical capabilities.

Relevant Courses

Practical/Coding Courses

AST-425Y1: Astronomy Research
AST-326Y1: Practical Astronomy
CTA-200H1: Introduction to Computational Astrophysics
JCP-265H5: Introduction to Scientific Computing
PHY-408H1: Time Series Analysis
PHY-407H1: Computational Physics
PHY-405H1: Electronics Lab
PHY-224H1: Practical Physics I

Theoretical Courses

APM-346H1: Partial Differential Equations
AST-320H1: Intro. to Theoretical Astrophysics
AST-221H1: Stars and Planets
AST-222H1: Galaxies and Cosmology
PHY-454H1: Continuum Mechanics
PHY-450H1: Relativistic Electrodynamics
PHY-356H1: Quantum Mechanics I
PHY-354H1: Advanced Classical Mechanics
PHY-350H1: Electromagnetic Theory

Academic Perfomance & Extracurricular Activites

My HBSc Degree was conferred with distinction due to my outstanding academic performance. Achieving this distinction at the end of my degree took a lot of discipline and effort, specially, because at the end of my fall semester in first year I had a sessional GPA of 1.93. I had to completely reshape the way I approached things and become disciplined enough to stay consistent on my achievements. After first year my transcripts show steady monotonic growth in my CGPA which reflected this shift from first year.

Aside from my academic achievement, I was also very active with universities sports, clubs and volunteering. I played for UofT's mens tri-campus teams during my first year, and after that I participated every year in intramural soccer for my college. I was president and finance director for the University of Toronto Amateur Astronomer's Society (UTAAS) for 2 years. And, I would also volunteer every month for AstroTours which was a public outreach event hosted out by the Astronomy department to connect with the general public and talk about our current research.

Public Outreach for Astronomy

I like being able to share the beauty of theoretical and observational Astronomy to the general public. As president of UTAAS during 2022 I paired up with the University of Toronto Mississauga Physics Club to host a trip to Earl Rowe provincial park and observe the Perseid Meteor shower. This event kick started my passion for public outreach and since that event I started organizing a team for further club events. During my last year in my undergrad, UTAAS held several academic and social events to share the teams passion for astronomy. Such events such as sidewalk astronomy or astronomy socials led the club to gain a lot of members and interest. However, the excursions to watch the Perseids meteor shower was the most anticipated event of the year.

AstroTours was one of my favorite events of the month because I would get to talk to people about how telescopes work and show them planets through the telescopes at the top of McLenna Physical Laboratories. The first time you see a planet on a telescope is something so memorable, and I enjoy being able to share that with people.