Recent content by ThatTallGirl

It depends a lot on your department. My school doesn't have a physics grad program, and this semester I'm teaching about a 20 hour/week TA load (4 sections of intro mechanics lab).

The upper division physics students in my department charge $12/hour for intro physics students. It's typically mostly for the experience, and most of us just spend a few hours a week helping students with homework questions.

Something that's helped me is Lindy Hop and Blues. Dancing is both relaxing and physical activity.

I'd always been good at math and science in high school, so with some family pressure I started my undergrad in chemical engineering. Near the end of my first semester, I realized it wasn't for me. Second semester I took my first college physics course, changed majors, and never looked back.

It's manageable. I took junior level E&M 1, Classical Mechanics, Intro to Particles, and a non-science gen ed while TAing a lab (~7 hours a week) and dancing about 15 hours a week. I came out with a 3.75, partially because the mechanics prof was an inconsistent grader and gave stupid hard tests.

Our school requires a minor. But, taking the math classes in our physics program is more than enough to fulfill the math minor requirement.

Also, from what I've seen, doing the first REU makes getting a second one easier, not harder.

Summer: Nuclear physics REU Fall: Intro Geology (for fun/staying full time) Acoustics Quantum II Stat Thermal TAing 3 sections of intro mechanics lab

I'll be at Notre Dame working in nuclear physics. I do have a friend that got into Indiana's program (med phys).

I got offers from Notre Dame and Old Dominion on 2/26 and 2/27. Turned down ODU, took ND. Other people in my department got offers at Michigan State (2/20) and Indiana University (2/15?). All three of us did research the previous summer and are currently juniors.

Old Dominion does phone interviews.

At our school, to counteract this, our grades are on a curved scale: A:80-100 B:65-79 C:64-55 D:54-45 In E&M 1, I had the highest grade, at 86, followed by an 81 (12 person class)

I went to Michigan State last summer (between sophomore and junior year). Applying to more nuclear physics and some nuclear physics for this summer: University of Washington Notre Dame Indiana UC Davis Cornell Old Dominion

Yeah, I was on a nuclear project. They had about half and half condensed matter and nuclear, with a little bit of acoustics and astronomy. It was a great program. Their application's pretty brief and their deadline's usually fairly late.

I kind of feel like the oddball here. I'm only applying to 6 places (Old Dominion, University of Washington, Notre Dame, Cornell, Indiana University, and UC Davis). I got into Michigan State last summer and still have a 3.8 junior year. I'm applying to a mix of accelerator and nuclear physics...