HPC undergrad to postgrad at the University, September 2014
The power of parallel computing was illustrated by William Saunders, MSc student of Modern Applications of Mathematics at this year's High Performance Computing (HPC) symposium 2014. He received an iPod Nano for his presentation, A multi-GPU solver for the non-linear shallow water equations.
William's career with HPC began during his undergraduate studies when he took, Scientific Computing (MA40177). The module covers a high level computer language (FORTRAN) and asks students to get their head around the concept of parallel computing.
Academia or industry - the choice is yours
Industry and academia are both keen to employ the skills of graduates that have an understanding of HPC. Computational research increasingly benefits from the power that is only possible using parallelism. Graduates who can show they have the skills will be in demand.
William illustrates the progression of learning from undergraduate to postgraduate. He taught himself C and C++ and began using the University's previous HPC facility, Aquila. Having access to a local service allows graduates to build their knowledge and confidence in a supported environment before applying to national facilities. William made this step up during his MSc and completed his research using the national facility, Emerald.
William's next problem is one of choice - where next after his MSc? Great skills tend to come with lots of choices. We wish him lots of luck.
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