Recent content by Schrodu

I first came across this essay many years ago in high school, and I'm now in a big-name grad school in the US (at Parts X, XI of the essay). I've been coming back to the essay every couple of years or so, and each time I've found some meaningful advice there. I just wanted to thank ZapperZ for...

In my opinion, some tools of QFT (path integrals, perturbation, renormalization) are more easily readable from condensed matter/stat mech books, for example, https://www.amazon.com/dp/0521845084/?tag=pfamazon01-20

I don't want to set off any debate here, but have you considered studying in India? There are several decent universities in India (IITs, IISERs, CMI, IISc, etc., search the forum for more info). Granted these aren't at the level of MIT or the Ivy league, but they will give you a chance of...

I'm pretty sure you're from India, so I'll answer accordingly Firstly, if you want to be an astronaut, let's just say you can't. Precious few countries fly them, and they're still treated as some sort of national heroes. If you want to be an astronomer, that is more possible, but first you...

I'm a bit confused, all the places that I applied to (including some ranked 50-100 in USNWR) offered full tuition + stipend for *all* admitted students, even internationals. I guess getting admission itself is somewhat more competitive for internationals, but once admitted, I don't think there's...

I'm an entering grad student, and I've done some undergrad research in CMT, so I don't know if this counts... still, FWIW A major part of research in CMT involves what is known as strongly-correlated systems, which is sort of a blanket term used to describe several research areas such as High...

Admission at the undergraduate level is determined on basis of several factors such as school marks, SAT scores, admission essays, reco letters and extra-curriculars. That said, all the places you mentioned are extremely competitive to get into. Financial aid for international students is...

Thing about CMI is, there are very few administrative restrictions on any such issues. You can take as many electives (graduate level/at CMI or IMSc) as you can fit into your timetable (I think under new rules you have to convince your advisor that you won't flunk them). Realistically, it is...

hi, I am also in a similar situation, I have been accepted to Yale (yet to receive offer letter), Michigan and Cornell. As my interest is in condensed matter theory, Michigan is almost ruled out, and I'm still waiting for couple of other decisions. It would be very helpful if anyone can give...

I have been following this thread, and couldn't resist replying any longer. Anirbit Mukherjee's document regarding CMI physics seems to have become quite popular among prospective physics students. To them I'd like to say: Anirbit's opinion is the one which is highest ranked by google, not...

Starting this year, the physics and biology departments at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), India, will be offering admission to international students. TIFR graduate school was modeled after US grad schools and so should be easy to adjust to for those who did their undergrad...

Don't forget India... lot of Indian institutes have started really good summer programs over the past few years. The more famous ones include: TIFR-VSRP IIT Kanpur-SURGE HRI-VSP although you can get great projects even in not-so-well-known places (I spent one summer in IOP Bhubaneswar and...

I'm from a different country, so my experience may not be relevant to you... I got to work with a really awesome prof in my freshman summer. He got me to work on a kind of "toy" research problem related to topological defects, which probably his grad students were too bored to do, and I had...

We used 'Heat & Thermodynamics' by Dittman/Zeemansky and 'Statistical Mechanics' by Kerson Huang for our Statistical Mechanics I and II courses respectively. The second one is very helpful especially for key topics like ensembles, quantum stat mech, Bose/Fermi gases etc.

CMI application deadline has passed, but if you're really interested, I suggest you write to the admissions office to see if they can make an exception for you, especially mention if you have previous achievements in olympiads etc. If (as I guess) you're from around Chennai, you might want to...