Recent content by Choppy

A PhD is a full time job. I have seen people complete them part time, but that can drastically extend the length of something that's already quite lengthy. I bring this up because you're looking at spending the next 4-6 years of your life completely dedicated to a specific project. That's one...

From a distant vantage point it seems one issue is that the OP is deeply concerned about not being as smart/academically inclined as their peers. Some might consider it a form of imposter syndrome. But this is extremely common in graduate school. Consider: The academic bottleneck - all though...

Things I would tell my first year undergrad self... Start thinking now about your long-term plan. Physics is an academic subject, and sure, you want to go as far as you can with it, but the odds of finding a tenured position are very much against you, so as you're selecting courses, think about...

I'm not an MCNP user, but I've done some Monte Carlo simulations. Some common things to consider/check: If you're simulating from the point of an electron source incident on your target, remember the bremsstrahlung process is not that efficient. How many histories are you running? Are you...

(Apologies if some of this was already said while I was typing it out... had to leave and come back to it...) In most cases when a student flunks out because they were playing video games, the problem isn't a lack of interest in the major. If everything else is okay, they can power through, at...

I suspect you already know the answer. The best way to prove to admissions committees that you'll be successful with graduate-level physics is by successfully completing an undergraduate degree in physics. At the risk of reducing this to an analogy, it's like you want to get to Physicsville, but...

For what it's worth, what you're looking at in a career as an academic physicist... 4 years of undergrad (factor in any credit for your time at Harvard 4-7 year of graduate school Multiple post-docs (likely another ~ 4 years) Then you can apply for an academic position as an assistant professor...

Sorry to hear you're having a tough go of it thus far. I've had quite different experiences as a medical physicist, but I understand that not all medical physicists (or MRI-physicists) have as much emphasis on research and the more fundamental aspects of the science behind what we do in our...

I'm sorry to hear you're having such a tough go of it. That's got to be frustrating. Yeah, for sure. If you have a pool of applicants with one or more who have specific and successful experience in what they need, it's rare that a hiring committee will give that up to hire someone without it...

That's a challenging situation, and I don't think you're alone. When you put all of that time and energy into a university degree, particularly in a professional field, its natural to want to come out on the other end with a job waiting for you. It's difficult for us to randomly offer...

Yes. For what it's worth professors tend to favour students from their own institutions, but that's not always the case. It's okay to ask. Keep trying.

Ideally you want what you're going to get the most out of, but it's important to recognize that's a multi-objective optimization with many different dimensions. These would include: - the hard skills that you'll develop (coding, hardware, data manipulation, etc.) - soft skills (project...

While I can't offer any specific advice on those schools, I wouldn't worry too much about involvement in a "large" research project at your stage of the game. A lot can change between starting an undergraduate education and entering graduate school. It's important that you have some opportunity...

As a first step, I would recommend contacting the University and it's financial aid department. They'll be in the best position to advise you on your options.

Normally that's a supervisor's job. If you've been out of the field for a while and don't have an academic network, start by contacting your old supervisor and working group. If the work isn't specifically in their field, they might have connections to help you. And if you've never been to...