meanfreepath | (no subject)

Things unearthed while clearing out papers this evening:

-- Grad school offer letters, scribbled notes from meetings with profs during visits. I'm sort of boggled at how little I knew about real physics then, not that I claim to know a whole lot now.

-- Scores from Music 11/12; I really enjoyed those music classes even though they required a lot of work.

-- Readings from humanities classes from freshman and sophomore years; for the most part tossed.

-- Score of Brad Gersh's Music 12 final composition, a duet for piano and flute. I got to perform it in the class recital with his sister Jessica, with whom I had frequently worked on physics p-sets, and a serious flautist. Playing that piece with Jessica was a real pleasure and a highlight of my last few weeks at Swat.

Things to do this week, not work-related:
-- Take ill-fitting clothes which for some reason I brought up with me from NJ and haven't touched in 3 years to Goodwill. Open 10-7.
-- Queue up at the Somerville Traffic & Parking Department to apply for a moving van parking permit. Open 9-4, and until 7 on Thursday. I imagine that going right at 9 one of these days will result in the least waiting.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Hey, I need to both visit Goodwill and Somerville Traffic/Parking. If you want to do this at the same time, I'm 1) free-ish and 2) have a car. When are you free?

~Emily

Hmm... thanks for the offer. I didn't manage to go this morning. It'll probably make the most sense to either go first thing in the morning (I imagine that even if we go to Traffic & Parking at 9, we won't be out until close to 10) or maybe on Thursday evening. So I guess either tomorrow or Thursday mornings would work, or tomorrow night.

I feel like I haven't seen you in ages -- I'd love to get breakfast or dinner while we're at it if you have the time.

We could shoot for Wednesday Morning:-)

I feel like I haven't seen you in ages either! We should totally get breakfast or lunch or something while we're at it!

~Emily

Hey Jerome,

What kind of things have you learned about real physics? I could stand to study it some more.

The thing about real physics is that it's difficult to study. You learn by doing, and asking questions and finding answers as you go, whether through empirical observations, learning from more experienced people, or looking stuff up in books.

So how do I get started doing?

It depends what type of physics you want to learn about. For anything non-classical, though--and a good deal of real physics isn't classical--the necessary equipment is sufficiently expensive that you probably need to either get a job doing it or go to grad school. Unless you want to do theory or something. I don't know so much about how you'd get started doing theory.

I could look for a job doing physics out at Brookhaven. I'm not sure what kind of jobs I'm eligible for with a bachelor's, a year teaching, and two years programming computers.

There are probably plenty of jobs in industry that you'd be qualified for. A guy I know just got a job at an optics company straight out of college. Since you have experience programming, people might be willing to hire you to do modeling and simulations if you're interested in that. If you want something more on the experimental side, if you can find a sufficiently well-funded lab, they might be willing to hire you as a lab tech. Stonybrook, NYU, and Columbia might be reasonable places to check, although lab techs are pretty rare in academic physics (as opposed to industrial physics, or academic biology...). I know nothing about whether government labs hire lab techs, but Brookhaven has an accelerator, right? Surely accelerators can always use more staff.

My suggestion would be to pick a type of physics, and then try to come up with places that might hire you to do that type of physics.