Tag: grad school
-
Writing a PhD Dissertation “Bird by Bird” (h/t Anne Lamott)
One of the best books that I’ve ever read on the process of writing is Anne Lamott‘s book “bird by bird.” The title refers to a grade school report on birds that her brother procrastinated on until the last night before it was due. The phrase “bird by bird” refers…
-
Just Because You Can, Should You? An Interactive Discussion on Ethics in a Scientific Context
Link to recording of research discussion 2025-01-15 @ FRIB room 1200 APS The Back Page (June 2010): “Scientific Fraud (or scientific misconduct if you dislike using the term fraud)” by David Goodstein TL/DR: Goodstein’s Framework for Scientific Fraud: “In my experience three factors are nearly always present whenever fraud occurs…
-
Required Reading For Prospective Grad Students
This book is a collection of narratives on the act of creation, but this description does not really do the book justice. It contains a broader perspective on the process of performing challenging tasks through the lens of art loosely defined. The themes include: This book is now required reading…
-
Spinlab Best Practices
This collection of information was on an internal facing wiki page for the group, but I was recently asked to share it with the outside world. There is very little original information here but this post does in one place collect useful insights from others who are much more experienced…
-
Invited Talk: A Physics Graduate Student’s Handbook For Applying To Physics Graduate School
This presentation was given during a collaboration visit I went on to my alma mater Duquesne University from March 26 – 30, 2025. Unlike my typical research talks, this presentation was about my perspective on applying to graduate school. While I think the superior version of a talk like this…
-
Physics Grad School Application “Bootcamp”
It is that time of year when people start applying to graduate school. Some advice, guidance, and insight is given here in a talk I’ll be presenting tonight to MSU students: https://www.dropbox.com/s/r5iqy8w6e2ft05d/2021-09-13-Grad-School-App-Bootcamp-JTS-notes.pdf?dl=0 An important part of the process is requesting letters of recommendation. Some guidance along these lines is given…
-
The Time-Consuming Privilege of Writing a Thoughtful Letter of Recommendation for a Student (2018 Edition)
[Updated from 2017 – JTS] Inspiration It will soon be application season (at least for students considering going to grad school in physics) for graduating seniors. As a consequence, I’ve decided to borrow some useful guidelines from my colleagues regarding letters of recommendation/reference: I have served on the undergraduate admissions…
-
The Time-Consuming Privilege of Writing a Thoughtful Letter of Recommendation for a Student
Inspiration It will soon be application season (at least for students considering going to grad school in physics) for graduating seniors. As a consequence, I’ve decided to borrow some useful guidelines from my colleagues regarding letters of recommendation/reference: Ed Brown’s Letters of Recommendation Pawel Danielewicz’s Recommendation Letters Brian O’Shea’s Recommendation…
-
Kristen’s Guide to Success in Spinlab
Spinlab group alumna Kristen Parzuchowski (MSU ’17, now 1st year graduate student at UC-Boulder now) has written an informal “guide to success in Spinlab.” This document has started to take on a life of its own and has been requested several times since she passed it along to the group.…
-
Colloquium @ Central Michigan University
Met with Matthew Redshaw’s group. Testing Time-Reversal Symmetry Using Lasers, a Magic Room, and Pear-Shaped Nuclei Experimental tests of fundamental symmetries using nuclei and other particles subject to the strong nuclear force have led to the discovery of parity (P) violation and the discovery of charge-parity (CP) violation. It is…
You must be logged in to post a comment.