siyphsc said:
We are expected to take quantum, stat mech, classical, and electro as classes and, when we are finished with them (we are given 2 years), we are expected to give an oral qualifier based on research in the field we hope to study.
In my case (and in the case of other graduate students I knew) core coursework was generally competed in
one year:
First semester: Quantum I, EM I, Classical
Second semester: Quantum II, EM II, Stat Mech
Students were allowed to take longer (two years), but were generally considered then
weaker students by both the professors in the department and by their graduate students peers (perhaps taking a Math Methods course the first year and putting off E&M).
Course courses for us were 1 hour lectures, three times per week, or 9 hours. On top of core coursework, you will likely have a TA or RA position. For such positions, you're generally expected to put in 20-30 hours per week.
I found my first term TA position easier... but it does depend on what class you are TAing, and what type of TA position you are assigned (lab TA, recitation TA, grading TA, or a combination of the above), your required attendance (if you're a lab TA how many hours of lab you actually teach and whether you must set up the labs, and if you're a recitation TA whether your professor requires you to attend class lectures, do grading, prepare quizzes, etc.). I know my TA position was easier than most (I taught 2 labs twice a week for a total of 10-12 hours... and grading of lab reports was easy and minimal).
When I became an RA my second term, I'm sure I tried to put in at least 30 hours a week in the lab... to get on the learning curve under a graduate student who was preparing to defend and contribute enough that i could be listed under a publication that he had in the works.
Throughout this time, I took my coursework seriously and worked all the problems of some very long homework sets assigned by the professors VERY diligently and neatly (rewriting the problem and then my solution, with explanations off to the side margin if they would be helpful, about things like units, why a result made physical sense, etc.) making them excellent study-guides for tests. I even received compliments from upper-level graduate students who graded for these graduate classes... and had one request at the end of my Jackson EM course that I make copies of my homework sets... since my solutions often took a different way than the professor's but ended up with the same correct result. A homework set 20-30 pages in length would not therefore be uncommon... and most courses would have one homework set due each week. Try producing 60-90 pages of
perfect homework each week at the graduate level -- in other words, no easy math here, and often some fairly nasty math (some problems I remember in E&M used elliptical or toroidal coordinates!). In fact... I think I didn't even get to "read" the text... no time for that. Most of my "spare" afternoon and evening time was spent producing these sets.
Some electives were also required, but were generally taking by graduate students one at a time in the later years (during the time more research was being conducted, and often trying to select courses that were complimentary to your main area of research under the recommendation of your research adviser). At that point, however, you should be spending at least 40 hours in the lab... probably more like 50 if you want to really get results and keep your adviser "happy" with you (plan to arrive before he/she does and then leave after he/she does). When the experiment or program code is running happily on its own getting results for you, you should be analyzing other results, reading publications, working on your own journal article or preparing presentations/posters for research conferences / internal grant reviews, etc.
In my opinion, slacking off during physics graduate school is a bad idea, especially if your plan to later seek a tenure track position. Have you met and talked with any untenured professors and seen the time they spend writing grant applications, doing research, teaching classes and performing university service on committees -- all to get enough "evidence" built up to get tenure? I've seen tenure track faculty, even those at small private schools that emphasize teaching over research, still put in about 60 hours per week.
