- #1
ccgong
- 3
- 0
I'm a college junior at a decent liberal art studying physics and math for a double degree. I'm quite torn over whether to apply to math or physics graduate department, and this decision has to be made even sooner than I thought. The thing is I'm going to run out of classes to take in my senior year (like many "advanced" college seniors), and I don't want to just do research since we are a small school and there IS no research here, not really. So I'm thinking I maybe should go take one or two graduate school classes at a State school close by (commuting is not a big problem, an hour round trip) next year. But I really don't know whether I should take math or physics! I mean I do very much want to go to Europe for PhD, and by Europe I mean UK, and by UK I mean Cambridge DAMTP (hey, don't judge, :P). I think I can do well in part III if I get a math master here, since that's what part III is all about, but then that is a bit like putting all the eggs in the same basket, because I want to do physics research in the future, not math (unless maybe in topology). And there are many other good institutions in Europe that have interesting things to offer. It will take an extra year or two to get a double master, and I just don't think it's worth it.
A little about how I'm doing now: my math is alright (on the level of A-), my physics is mostly A, and I'm good at labs (which is ironic since I'm far more drawn to theory than experiments in terms of research). I'm taking EM now, and it's not doing anything for me (the prof is not trying very hard, material is boring, or probably just I'm using Jackson as companion and Griffith in comparison just looks juvenile). But my maths classes have been interesting, diff geo, abstract alg and probability. I'm also facing the decision whether or not to take stats mech next spring (physics graduate school requires this, but math obviously doesn't, and part III does not have anything resembles this!) I really don't know, please help me.
A little about how I'm doing now: my math is alright (on the level of A-), my physics is mostly A, and I'm good at labs (which is ironic since I'm far more drawn to theory than experiments in terms of research). I'm taking EM now, and it's not doing anything for me (the prof is not trying very hard, material is boring, or probably just I'm using Jackson as companion and Griffith in comparison just looks juvenile). But my maths classes have been interesting, diff geo, abstract alg and probability. I'm also facing the decision whether or not to take stats mech next spring (physics graduate school requires this, but math obviously doesn't, and part III does not have anything resembles this!) I really don't know, please help me.