What is Grad: Definition and 1000 Discussions

Hi. I'm in condensed matter experiment, and I was wondering whether employers (in academia or industry) would look less favorably on hiring people whose BA institution and PhD institution are the same. I've heard different answers from different people about this question. Some say that...

Okay, so I originally planned a B.S. but because I wanted to pursue a computer science minor and still graduate in 4 years, I thought about doing a BA in physics. Basically, I'm substituting the difference in BS and BA physics units with computer science courses. Does this look bad for PhD...

Hey everybody, I'm an undergraduate taking an intro grad qm course and I was wondering what books people recommend. I've taken one semester of qm (griffiths level) My school recommends three, landau lifgarbagez, sakurai and merzbacher. We have three L-Ls in the library that can be taken...

Hi all. I am a Math and Philosophy double major at a top 20 university. I have recently been putting a lot of thought into what I want to do after graduation but am basically pretty lost. I was the best physics student in my high school during my junior and senior years and really enjoyed...

It seems that most professors seem to have positions open for undergrads (although undergrads don't need pay). But what about graduate students? Is it a good idea to *always* email any prospective advisor, asking him if he has open positions available for new grad students? It seems that...

Hi, I'm a 27 year old with undergraduate masters in physics. I am currently working as a process engineer in UK and trying to write up a phd in semiconductor physics. However, I'm seriously lacking the motivation to write up and wondering if there is something better I could do as a career -...

I'm an international student who has been in the US for a long time. I go to a state college that excels in engineering, but it's mainly focused on industry. My major is chem e, and I'm still trying to decide between industry and grad school. My gut tells me I'm a better fit for grad school, but...

I'm about to graduate with a BS in Physics and am currently trying to decide which graduate school to attend. I'm trying to decide between four right now (UIUC, U of Michigan, Northwestern, and Indiana U). I'm not completely set on an area of research yet, and I'm trying to consider the various...

Hello, I'm currently a 3rd year physics student (will be finishing next year) with some questions about recommended courses which would facilitate my ability to tackle graduate courses. First, due to financial issues I cannot take more than a fixed number of hours in the coming year so I have to...

Is it normal for my interest in pursuing a MS and PhD to keep waning and for me to keep holding on thinking it will increase? Am I just being lazy, or should I truly shift gears and leave academia?

I'm pretty sure there was a grad school FAQ sticky, but I can't find it (am I just blind?). Search didn't bring it up. I've heard a lot of different things about grad school applications. Grades are everything, all that matters is if you've done research; being published is a huge boost...

Good evening! I'm currently a junior at a top 10 US university. I'll walk away next year with a BS in physics and probably with some type of honor due to GPA/honors thesis. I'm sure like half the posters on here, I have deluded dreams of attending certain grad schools. I don't prescribe to...

So I've been discussing on here a lot of my issues right now with majors. I want to go into grad school for physics, without a doubt.. but the thing is this...it will take me an extra year to finish a physics major, as opposed to a mathematics major. I've been told, however, that I...

I am thinking about applying for grad school in the US (Chicago to be exact) and I have some questions. First of all, some background. In 10 months I will have a masters degree from University of Iceland. A masters degree here is one year of graduate level courses (60 ECTS) and one year of...

And if so, what other routes have you tried? Does calling them usually work? I've emailed a lot of grad school admission offices, but I generally get horrible reply rates (as in, I usually only get around 1 reply for every 5 emails). I do try to keep my questions short and simple. Here's...

so I recently visited a grad program Open house but didn't get a chance to meet some faculty whose research I was interested in and didn't get to meet their grad students. Would it be appropriate to email those grad students to ask how they like working for their PIs and what their opinions...

so a few of the grad programs I got admitted to don't have their open houses until April. However, if I wish, I could visit the program before then, but I of course won't be able to meet the incoming class of grad students. Since I already graduated over a year ago, I've had a couple...

Hello, I will be attending an Open House this week and was wondering what things I should be looking for when I visit the department as well as what I could ask them to get the best general idea of what life as a grad student there will be like. I know this is a very broad question, but I was...

Can anyone tell me about the quality of life as a grad student at Harvard and Stanford? I've been accepted to the PhD physics programs at both schools and have no idea which one to choose. Since both schools are excellent academically and I don't yet have a specific area I want to specialize...

Searching for the tool often takes a lot of time, so the professor is often better off outsourcing the work to the student (and the student can often take advantage of his Web 2.0 connections). I'm just curious. I actually think that this is the type of research that I would do best at, since...

Hey I've been in grad school around Worcester for a year already, and I'm planning to move out for various reasons. The problem that bothers me is probably the opposite of what you'd expect - I am keen of moving further away from campus, maybe purely for the sake of city life. 1) I grew up...

I'm finding myself interested in studying something like Algebraic Geometry or Algebraic Topology for graduate school, and I'm just wondering what schools are out there at have strong programs in these areas? I already know about Columbia, Michigan, Texas, and Utah for AG, and about UChicago for...

As some of you may know, I'll graduate next Spring with a B.S. Mathematics and Physics minor. From my perspective, I wanted to gain a broad and fundamental technical education in undergrad. I view grad school as career training. Applied math is an option at my university. It would be the easiest...

I was wondering this today. has it almost become necessary to have publications to get into grad school? I was talking to a grad student today who got denied by state schools with a 3.5 or 3.6 GPA, and no publications. I have plenty of research experience but as of yet have no publications. will...

I'm a sophomore so I'm not going to be looking into gradschool for a while, but I'm just curious how it works. When you apply, do you apply specifically to work with a certain professor or team (maybe you are interested in their work), or do you just apply similar to how you would for an...

Hello there, I'm currently an undergrad working towards a B.S. in Mathematics. I'm not too far along; I've completed the Calculus sequence and a couple classes after that. I'm currently in the equivalent of an "Intro to Proofs" class, required by my school. I work full-time, so during...

I want to end up in theoretical physics but would rather do a maths major. I'm just starting second year undergrad at the moment. If I did a maths major, the courses I'd have under my belt would include: ODEs/PDEs differential geometry general relativity a lot of linear algebra and...

Hi, I am currently a Mechanical Engineering major (freshman) looking to eventually go into Nuclear Engineering, specifically fission or fusion power production. My school only offers a Nuclear Engineering minor so only a few classes. So is this necesarily a bad thing? If I want to head into...

I'm trying to figure out how hard it would be for me to get into grad school. I graduated with a 2.79 and a BA in physics, two and a half years ago. I did publish 3 papers in apj, won 4 research awards, one campus-wide calculus competition, 4 grants (not including the ones I won more than...

This is essentially a poll question. Here's the deal. I love math, physics, computers... essentially, if it's quantitative and involves puzzling over problems, I love it. However, I'm pretty concerned about getting a well-paying job--or even a mediocre job that involves using what I know...

I'm a 1st year graduate student, and until yesterday I was absolutely certain I wanted to do theoretical physics. After talking to the 1st year graduate advisor, I am not not so sure. While he didn't say anything I didn't know (3 postdocs minimum, few academic jobs, less industry jobs than...

One of the graduate schools I got accepted to was Maryland. Its for the Applied Math program, but since I'm also interested in physics, I may later decide to choose to have a physics professor as my research advisor. Anyways, I was just wondering what people's thoughts were on the quality of the...

Homework Statement Hi, i am trying to find the div, grad and curl in cylindrical polar coordinates for the scalar field \ phi = U(R+a^2/R)cos(theta) + k*theta for cylindrical polar coordinates (R,theta,z) I have attempted all three and would really appreciate it if someone could tell me...

Hello, I'm currently a junior undergraduate majoring in Physics/Math at a well ranked university. I've recently decided that I'm way more excited by the new commercial space industry than I am by pretty much anything in frontier physics (although I find many topics in frontier physics really...

I am currently a third year student in Scotland, originally from America. I will most likely graduate in 2012 with a joint honours degree in mathematics and physics. I am strongly considering returning to the US for grad school. If I graduate in 2012, I'll have a BSc. As I understand, most...

Hi I'm graduating for a european physics/applied maths M.Sc. around September. I thought about applying for US grad school already during last autumn but I couldn't be sure I would be done in time, and my application would really have lacked the final beefing up of good results in the really...

I'm trying to decide between the undergrad physics and EE route. My main interests are obviously mathematics and physics. By the way I'm from Quebec and we have a required 2 year of "Cegep" we must take before applying to a university, I think it's the equivalent of colleges everywhere else...

Does anyone know what the acceptance rate is for some Canadian grad schools in either physics or math

Hi all, The first few paragraphs are background about me. If you don’t want to read this, please skip it and answer my questions at the bottom. I’m a nanotechnology engineering student at the University of Waterloo. Over the past two years of my studies (I’ve finished 2B,) I’ve found that...

If you aren't sure what a co-op program is, it's a program where you go to a university to take classes and to work for a company while you complete your undergraduate work. I am thinking of going to Kettering University which, (according to their website) is one of the more premier...

So, I'm currently a third year undergrad physics major. I've always had health anxiety issues, since I was a child. However, very recently they've begun to worsen, and I've been going through a lot of depression/paranoia states. I've seen a psychologist and therapist. My therapist said I had...

Physics Grad School with "Historical Method" Pedagogy? Are there graduate schools in physics that teach physics with a history and philosophy (HPS) emphasis? http://sites.huji.ac.il/science/stc/staff_h/galili_h.htm" and optics that adopted this approach remain to be valuable and interesting...

Hello everybody, I applied to eight graduate schools in mathematics and so far I have received two acceptances. Out of those eight, there are really only four that I'm truly interested in, with the other four being safety schools. Of the two acceptances that I've received so far, one of them...

Because I'm transferring programs (Engineering -> CompSci), I may have three withdrawls this term. If I explain that the withdrawls are because of this program transfer, the admissions committee will most-likely understand right? I don't enjoy these courses and the courses will not be program...

Hello I'm new here. I've wanted to ask this for quite a while to someone but didn't know where to. You see, I made a mistake, I majored in finance during my undergrad education and now I want to do an MS in Applied Mathematics (or similar). Yes, I understand it should have been the other way...

i have done a little on multivariable calculus in school -partial derivates and tangent planes to f(x,y), but now we have moved on to functions of more than 2 variables my teacher, however, doesn't really teach us - she gives us equations and tells us to do questions and i usually find myself...

I'm trying to figure a way to get into a physics program, from a less-than-ideal position. I've seen a lot of advice on this forum aimed at college students, which is perfectly reasonable, but unfortunately I don't have a blank slate. Anyway, here's a brief summary of my rotten little CV: I went...

Can one apply to the US grad school and skip masters level courses to start working on PhD in the first year? Because in Europe, masters degree is usually obtained instantly after undergrad, whereas PhD level studies are separated. One really wouldn't want after obtaining masters and getting...

I'm currently double majoring in ChemE and physics with the intent of going to grad school. This semester I'm taking 6 courses this semester totaling 19 hours, with about 10-15 hours per week spent in a research lab. I was considering dropping one course and taking it another semester, but I...

For my school, a major involve taking 60% pre-selected physics/math courses. And a specialist invove taking 80% pre-selected physics/math courses. But you can go in between and take 70% physics/math courses to earn a major. This can definitely boost one's GPA and schedule flexibility. So I...