Recent content by F=qE

For undergraduate education, Caltech is basically a pressure cooker. Undergrads come out of the school with incredible theoretic understandings of things and great skills. It's not that at Caltech you "can take graduate level courses" but rather "you will take courses that at any other...

Congrats on the exciting options ahead of you. I saw this thread a couple times and since it was bumped recently, perhaps I will add some thoughts for you as I have a unique place in this question. As you suspect, Berkeley's classes are much much bigger than Caltech's. This is especially true...

I think you're missing a piece of the puzzle. If you don't love physics, pursuing a physics PhD purely to get a role in a financial institution is a really stupid idea. Why spend 4 years on a PhD when you can get the skills in an MFE in a year or 2 and gain a lot more like an internship...

Agree with the other comments here, the only thing I might add is this. If I'm giving horrible advice, someone who is an expert can yell at me. But it's what I would tell someone to do. 1. If you are going to retake classes to improve your GPA, it might be beneficial to take harder versions of...

This assumes that OP is at the exact same caliber as the 4-5 accepted. MIT will not lower the standard for OP. So thus, OP could make the acceptance rate 75 or 80% instead as the one reject in the group of 4 or 5 ;) Anyways, OP, you should really have a back up plan. And a back up back up plan...

I would start with Calc 2 personally. Taking AP calculus AB only in no way makes you ready for multivariable. You will be in over your head. I took AP calc AB/BC and then skipped right into multivariable calculus my first semester in college. It is one of those decisions looking back that I...

Hey Physics Forums, I have what might be a dumb question but I think it's one that a lot of professional physicists can answer. I also think it's one that a lot of people like me might be curious to know the answer. Context for me is I'm a graduate student trying to understand my future...

I went to UCB for undergrad and I found my way into particle physics research as an undergrad with a nice group at Berkeley Lab. So it is definitely possible. I think if you know you want to do particle physics research, UCB is a better choice than UCSD. Why? UCB has a large national laboratory...

In what world is Notre Dame and UT Austin named 'fallback' schools? I honestly believe that you should have one school that you think you are a shoe-in to as a back up fallback school. I would not consider your list of fallbacks to be that. I went to UC Berkeley for undergrad. Sure it is...

So Caltech is your dream school but LA is the last place you want to live? I'm sure you know this, but Caltech is literally very close to downtown LA.

Just to add my own thought here... I recently started grad school. I hadn't seen math in almost 3 years (because I tested out of classes and took some early) and now math is by far my hardest class. By putting a year between you and grad school, you are going to make every class that much harder.

Here are my thoughts: IF you can complete your 4th year of undergrad AND complete this masters (In the same year) - then by all means go for it. You aren't losing any time. But things to consider - Is that program free for you? Those masters in quantitative finance programs are EXTREMELY...

Yeah I should have mentioned the part about not really getting to do courses in it as an undergrad. Undergrad is a lot of building the background you need to learn about it in grad school.

As someone who researched in nuclear fusion for 2 summers I'll give you my thoughts... The best thing you can study is Plasma Physics. Plasma Physics is hugely made up of 2 components (Yes, there are others but these are the 2 big ones). They are Nuclear Fusion Applications and Applications to...

You could have said thank you both for bothering to read my OP and write something nice instead of saying you guys didn't give me good advice, but it's ok. I tried to give you some insight into what and when you'd need to take the gre's for us grad schools. I won't be bothering to read any...