Getting a Physics Major Part I

Getting a Physics Major Part I Juniors in physics tend to complain a lot. The more of them there are, the louder the complaining. Sometimes they complain about the cold, sometimes about the yankees, about their radiators not working, or the sink backing up, about someone not flushing the toilet, about the nations state of foreign affairs, the overpopulation problem in the world. Mostly, though, I think they complain about junior lab. Its best to come into junior physics lab with a bit of preparation. By the end of the first 2 weeks, you are expected to have learned how to operate your first set of equipment, successfully conducted your first experiment on this equipment, learned independently how to program in Matlab, conducted your full set of data analysis in Matlab, learned how to use Latex, written a 4-page research paper in Latex, prepared a 15 minute American Physics Society style oral presentation to give to your professors/TAs, given this presentation, and also completed several assignments equivalent to a normal problem set. I had worked all summer in Latex and Matlab, and I was pretty grateful for it. At MIT, in certain departments, there are entire courses bent on teaching you Matlab. That was one thing that was pretty brutal about this course, just the level of independence, the extent to which you were on your own. But where you really needed help- mainly the theory behind the experiments, ideas for improvement, equipment debugging and malfunction, the TAs were invaluable. We couldnt have gotten something like this working without them. (I like that cord thats connected to the table this cant have been our final set-up :P yeah actually if you look closely, one of the discriminators the left blue- has an output but no input :)) Once, a TA, god bless his soul, said to me, I dont know how you guys do it, I can barely get all this stuff graded on time. (By the way, being a TA for junior lab must really really suck. What a brave thing to do.) The simplest answer is we do it because we have to. For a general physics (8 or 8-focused) major, these are the requirements for graduation, and the order in which I took/will take them: Freshman Fall: 8.01(2) (GIR) newtonian mechanics 18.02 (GIR) multivariable calc Freshman Spring: 8.02(2) (GIR) em 18.03 diff eq (most boring class ever) Sophomore Fall 8.03 wave mechanics (probably your first hard-ish physics class) 8.033 relativity (special with a tiny taste of GR) Sophomore Spring 8.04 quantum mechanics I (they water this down) 8.044 statistical mechanics (huuge field, really) 18.703 abs algebra (you need a higher math class (18.0x)) Junior Fall 8.05 quantum mechanics II (formalism: harder than 8.04 some would say, way harder) 8.13 lab 8.286 early universe (w/ alan guth) this can serve as my extra elective but I may actually have that covered 8.791 seminar in xray astronomy im not sure what this counts for :/ Junior Spring now this is where things start diverging (getting interesting) If I stay 8: 8.14 lab 8.06 quantum II something else If I go for 8-B (8-flexible) 8.962 Grad General Relativity (will keep me pretty busy) 8.06 Senior Fall 8.09 classical mechanics II UROP Thesis other stuff Senior Spring okay I cant think this far ahead. If you look at this link: http://web.mit.edu/physics/undergrad/majors/degreereqs.html You can get a more complete idea of what is required of each flavor of physics. I like having the option of 8 vs. 8-B, they are there for people w/ different goals. The degree that you receive is the same either way. If youre 8-B, youll have some bitter 8 majors looking at you like youre less Hard Core, but dont pay any attention to them. You shouldnt do things in college because they are easy or because you want a shiny trophy of a second major, but you also shouldnt do things just because they are hard (somehow, the second major example applies here, too :P). At MIT, kids are actually more likely to have trouble with this second point without realizing it, and take way more classes than they would be happy with. Do what you want, learn what you want- its 4 years of your life and your parents money, you know. Besides, its cooler to be really good at one thing, than okay at 10. Of course, its even c ooler to be really good at 10 things. Or 20. Im working on that. Right now, Im just hoping to be really good at physics. (And cheerleading.) That digression aside, of course so we can graduate is not the ONLY reason we take junior lab. You learn some as well :P Ruth, 08, from upstairs, thinks its the best class shes ever taken. A more detailed look into my first semester in junior lab, COMING UP NEXT. After my 8.05 final :P