Advice on getting involved in department

[jaska22]

I have a question regarding getting involved in the physics department. In spring '08 I transferred from a 2-year college to University. I ridiculously spent time taking some classes at 2-year college to decide what to study and ended up staying extra 1 year after associate degree. Reason for staying was that I decided for Physics and wanted to take extra classes that I needed for Physics before I transfer since it was cheaper. Now, I'm at the University and now after one semester I still have to stay 2 more years since all I have left is physics classes and they are most prerequisits for each others. It looks like it will take me almost six years to graduate with BS alltogether, but I was undecided at the beginning and now I'm paying for it. So, that is background, but my question is that I want to get involved but don't have too much background since so far I was able to take Intorductory Mechanics and Electromagnetism so far only, one at 2yr college and other at University. So since I'm not so knowledgeable in physics as I didn't take many classes I feel like I wouldn't be good in any research areas, but since I'm junior now, think I should start with doing some research. I thought of going to professors to talk to them but since I didn't do so well in Electromagnetism (hard prof. with 25% being the average on all exams) I feel that I can't explain myself and advising professor is the one I had for the electromagnetism class. I want to talk to him but I'm not sure what I am specifically interested in. They have research in High Energy, Atomic Physics, Astrophysics, Condensed Matter, but I don't know much about those to just dive in and I expect they wouldn't be much interested in including me since I can't contribute much. Plus on top of this I am a very very shy person and didn't really go to Society of Physics meeting even though I am a member on national level for over a year now. I want to know where to start now? I will start the SPS meetings with the beginning of this semester, but what else? I am thinking of starting a research next year or even maybe next summer. I have one required Undergrad Research to do for BS, but is only one enough to get considered for Graduate school in the end, since I see many people do multiple of those before they finish BS in physics? I expect to be advanced by the end of this fall and spring '09 semesters and want to get into research? Also, when you do start with research within the department how much time does it take, and how many classes can you take at the same time, or does research take most of your time?

 

[Defennder]

I have a question regarding getting involved in the physics department. In spring '08 I transferred from a 2-year college to University. I ridiculously spent time taking some classes at 2-year college to decide what to study and ended up staying extra 1 year after associate degree. Reason for staying was that I decided for Physics and wanted to take extra classes that I needed for Physics before I transfer since it was cheaper. Now, I'm at the University and now after one semester I still have to stay 2 more years since all I have left is physics classes and they are most prerequisits for each others.

It looks like it will take me almost six years to graduate with BS alltogether, but I was undecided at the beginning and now I'm paying for it. So, that is background, but my question is that I want to get involved but don't have too much background since so far I was able to take Intorductory Mechanics and Electromagnetism so far only, one at 2yr college and other at University. So since I'm not so knowledgeable in physics as I didn't take many classes I feel like I wouldn't be good in any research areas, but since I'm junior now, think I should start with doing some research. I thought of going to professors to talk to them but since I didn't do so well in Electromagnetism (hard prof. with 25% being the average on all exams)

I feel that I can't explain myself and advising professor is the one I had for the electromagnetism class. I want to talk to him but I'm not sure what I am specifically interested in. They have research in High Energy, Atomic Physics, Astrophysics, Condensed Matter, but I don't know much about those to just dive in and I expect they wouldn't be much interested in including me since I can't contribute much. Plus on top of this I am a very very shy person and didn't really go to Society of Physics meeting even though I am a member on national level for over a year now.

I want to know where to start now? I will start the SPS meetings with the beginning of this semester, but what else? I am thinking of starting a research next year or even maybe next summer. I have one required Undergrad Research to do for BS, but is only one enough to get considered for Graduate school in the end, since I see many people do multiple of those before they finish BS in physics? I expect to be advanced by the end of this fall and spring '09 semesters and want to get into research? Also, when you do start with research within the department how much time does it take, and how many classes can you take at the same time, or does research take most of your time?

You should really learn how to paragraph your post for easy reading. It might turn others off from giving you advice.

 

[jaska22]

I'm sorry about that, I just got cought up into writing.