Recent content by Sam I Am

In the physics department at Cornell, there is only one required course, an experimental lab class. As long as your can pass the preliminary exam showing adequate knowledge of undergrad courses and your research advisor doesn't deem others necessary, you can get by with just the one.

Man, doing something like that would be my dream. Even if it weren't through the peace corps, being able to build up the technology in a country that truly needs it is my calling. I probably went into the wrong field for that though :P The more I think about it, the more joining the Corps is a...

That is good to hear, thank you so much for your insight. Those who have done it after a PhD, were they in a STEM field? If so, were they able to get a job after returning? I'm sure that doing something non-career-related would kill my chances of being able to go into academia, but that's a...

This may be a silly (and, as a first year grad student, premature!) question, but I am wondering about the possibility of going into the Peace Corps after getting my Ph.D. in physics. My field of study is condensed matter physics, and I have begun working with a group doing some nanotechnology...

I honestly don't see how transferring before your senior year could help you at all. It's not enough time to get a good letter of recommendation from a professor - only a "he/she got an A in my course and was a good student" letter, which won't get you anywhere. Unless the other school you are...

I think that this point cannot be stressed enough. I did numerical QFT for undergraduate research and specialized in computational physics. I avoided electronics and solid state courses thinking that they would be absolutely HORRIBLE and subject areas that I would never use. I thought that...

I have found a couple other threads like this but I am looking for something at a very beginning level. I joined an experimental condensed matter group for the summer at the school where I will be matriculating as a first-year graduate student in the fall. They study various...

Thanks for all of your opinions. I've decided to get funded via fellowship for at least my first semester and not TA just to gauge my base "sanity loss" before adding things on top of it.

No, sorry - if I don't TA my first year, I would do a year of school fellowship, then 3 years of NSF, then 2 years of school fellowship. Frankly I have no idea what subfield I'm interested in, but over the summer I will be working with a condensed matter group whose work I am very interested in.

For the first year, I would not be on the NSF, but a diversity-type fellowship through the university. Also, there is no teaching requirement, and I will probably not be doing research the first year.

Greetings Physics Forums, I would like to propose a funding scenario; please tell me what you would do. You have been accepted to graduate school with six years of fellowships (3 through NSF, 3 through the school, though the latter are actually 9-month periods). As an entering first-year...

Excellent, I will see if I can find a cheap used copy of those. Thanks!

I won't be taking the qualifying exams until my second year (I think), though I guess incoming students get a free crack at it in the fall of their first year. I'm more worried about fall courses, though not so much a "jump start" as "catching up to everyone else". I don't know specifically...

Can anyone recommend good study resources before entering graduate school? I'm going from an "unknown" state school to Cornell, and I'm worried about being underprepared for courses. I have taken two semesters of E&M and Quantum (Griffiths), one semester of mechanics (Fowles & Cassiday) plus...