Recent content by mayonaise

I got into VG industry straight after graduating with MS in Physics (experimental HEP). I wrote the car physics for a racing game series. Specifically, I wrote the whole car dynamics including engine torque, gearbox, suspension, wind resistance, collisions, force feedback and the most important...

There's this article written by a recent-grad CS Phd that talks about benefits of going to name-brand universities. I believe UIUC is top enough in many fields such that this article may apply to it. http://pgbovine.net/advantages-of-name-brand-school.htm

In Taiwan, lots of Physics PhD's work in the same industry as yours. Based on personal experience, around 1/3 of my experimental HEP lab mates are/had been in one semiconductor foundry or another. Same industry, but our part is more in manufacturing using said litho systems. These opportunities...

Very good description! All three applied to me. There's one additional reason I can think of: They get a wrong impression of what doing scientific Physics is like in reality. I went into experimental HEP and came out, degree in hand, completely disillusioned. I personally would have done...

In software engineering, there are things that are outdated really quickly, like the newest hottest language/framework/platform and whatnot. Then, there are things that remain useful for very long time, such as algorithms/math. Fortunately, in the universities they teach you things that remain...

If you're in engineering, then the fork lift would be an ingenious solution. If you're in CS, and figured out you should instead run a warehouse business with the fork lift instead of going to contests, you're an entrepreneur. In the Physics culture, if you graduate and end up doing things...

Anecdote: When I worked in making arcade games, we had people (engineers) who design the cabinets. In addition to making the cabinet's PC work, they also design the I/O board which controls all the lights and buttons and player inputs, and for security too. They DO get to crawl up and down the...

Please clean up your first post by using better grammar, capitalization and spelling. Also put things into paragraphs. As it is now, your post is very difficult to read. I know the answers, but if you're too lazy to fix your writing, I'll be too lazy to post.

Because ideally, learning and doing research in physics train a person to think independently and ask important questions. These qualities help maintain a healthy society. It is therefore socially good that we don't starve. It is personally great that I don't starve, because I think I can make a...

Two reasons I can think of. First, it is socially useful for me or any other physics grad to not perish in the tenure pursuit. The other is finance actually is useful for something for some people, otherwise you don't get paid. Unfortunately, research papers usually are not what people...

There's one important distinction: in undergrad you're fed materials to learn, in PhD programs you need to learn on your own. There are classes, yeah, but they're not the focus anymore. So a) you might find that grad school is very different and you get to/have to learn on your own. b) As...

Figure out what you might want to do first before you commit to degrees. Talk to real recruiters at career fairs. Learn politics, economy and history. Don't just take courses. Actively figure out what has happened before. Do some internships.

In my country, one reason is to make it seem important for $ to go from tax payer to government to universities to train more scientists/engineers. Then when there's a glut of MS/PhD scientists and engineers, industry and academia get to treat them worse without loss of productivity. Now...

Saying this to a disillusioned physics grad does nothing but add insult to injury. I DO agree that we should not be so idealistic and trusting. But I did grow up with parents and professors who preach this exact distorted view, so if you told me I shouldn't have trusted the only people I was...

"IT" usually means building/maintaining a company's network and database, which is never the company's moneymaking business, unless you work at a IT consultancy. You will be far away from anything rewarding in an "IT" job because you're the modern plumber. That's assuming by "IT" you mean the...