Grad-school chances looking slim: how can I improve them?

[v0id]

I'm a 3rd year Physics undergraduate student at the University of Toronto, and my academic career seems to have hit rock bottom. The grades from my past term were absolutely dismal and I have (consequently?) been rejected by various professors for summer work. Since I am effectively unemployed for the next four months, I have plenty of time to allocate to further reading. However, what would you recommend I do to ameliorate my chances of being accepted for graduate studies in Physics? I have already considered trying to get something published - even contributing code to a physics-oriented open source project. Independent publication of significant research is quite difficult given my progress up the proverbial mountain of knowledge. Are there other avenues for me to examine?

 

[bravernix]

Try to work for a professor for free over the summer. Do extremely well your next semester.

 

[Dr. Courtney]

Patient: It hurts when I do that.
Doctor: Don't do that.

Seriously, get a summer job flipping burgers or washing dishes. Nothing motivates more to work harder in college than flipping burgers.

 

[vincebs]

The best thing you could do for your physics career is to transfer out of U of T.

The next thing you can do is choose your courses wisely. Take PHY326 only when you 're not taking a full course load. Study with other people, make some physics friends at PASU. Don't take non-linear physics or condensed matter physics in your senior year, take macroscopic physics instead. Try to find opportunities to meet your prof, either at office hours or after class. Be a bit social with them and maybe you can land yourself a summer position.

You should try contacting profs at different universities for help. Unfortunately with the crappy GPAs U of T Physics gives, it's going to be hard no matter where you look. I sent out like 50 e-mails and fortunately someone finally said yes. :)

The only thing going to U of T Physics for your undergraduate degree is good for is going to U of T Physics for graduate school. If you want to do something else, then you've screwed yourself over. Engsci Physics, though it involves more work, is a better option for your career.

If nothing comes up for the summer, you can sign up for a "Supervised Reading" course during the summer, where you propose a topic you want to research and you read through articles and write up a report and present it at the end of the summer. In that way you'll get to meet regularly with a prof who might like you and hire you next summer or at the very least write you a good recommendation. Talk to Prof. Bailey (the undergraduate chair) about this.

 

[v0id]

Thanks for the responses.

Dr. Courtney: I'm averse to flipping burgers for http://pictures.pichaus.com/95b70d92c70703496ea27d0c4ca3289315f1775f?AWSAccessKeyId=0K4RZZKHSB5N2XYJWF02&Expires=1207860000&Signature=a9%2BcuJEeSMway7k3BOxa5KokPxM%3D" . Getting hooked onto that job will eventually lead to depression if I do make it to grad-school!

vincebs: Thanks for the advice. I will surely look into the supervised reading courses. Transferring out of the Physics specialist stream at this point would be unwise, since I have already sunk a lot of time and money into it and there is only 1 year remaining.