PhD Updates!

PhD students here are required to take six physics courses and one elective, while maintaining a "High Pass" (around a high B) average, and get at least two "Honors" (A) grades. In my first semester, I took Adv. Classical Mechanics, Adv. Quantum Mechanics 1, Mathematical Methods, and Research Methods. Analogous to the advice I gave for undergraduates, go to your professor's office hours! They appreciate when you take the time to try and better understand the material.

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For the first two years, Physics PhD students are also required to be a Teaching Fellow (which is how we get paid) for one of the undergraduate physics courses. This could either be a laboratory course, a lecture course, or an elective, and whichever one you're assigned to determines your responsibilities. Generally this means to either run a small lab section, hold office hours weekly, and grade homework assignments and exams. Grading isn't the most fun thing in the world to do, but I enjoy when students who didn't understand something come to my office hours and leave understanding it. 

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While you're not required to start research right away, it is something I wanted to pursue early, as I knew that would help me with finding motivation to get through the coursework. From the professors I had reached out to when I was accepted, I set up a date/time to discuss on what future projects I would be able to do, and the background knowledge I would need to have to get there. From the end of the fall semester and into winter break, I worked on reading many, many papers, and asking questions about anything I didn't fully understand.

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Along with research, I also applied for two research fellowships: NSF GRFP and DOE CSGF, both of which I will hear back from sometime during my second semester. With NSF, you can either apply while you're a senior undergraduate student, or as a first year graduate student. You cannot apply again after that. However, with the DOE fellowship, you can apply multiple times throughout your graduate career. All fellowships are different in terms of what is required for each, and your eligibility to apply (this is also dependent on if you are an international student or not), so make sure that you and your advisor read over the requirements carefully!

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In short, I've learned that grades on exams don't really matter (as all the graduate students that I talked to said, and I didn't believe them at the time), it's better to suffer with your cohort, and always have open lines of communication with your professors and advisors. That's all I've got for now, check back for updates at the end of next semester!

Six courses are now out of the way (this semester, I took Adv. Quantum Mechanics II, Statistical Mechanics, Graduate Computational Python, and my formal research seminar), and I have successfully finished my second semester! Something that stood out to me throughout this semester was how much I relied on the support of my friends to get me through the long and challenging weeks. Many times I got on zoom just so I would be motivated enough to work through one more problem, or finish typing up a surprise midterm research report. As an aside, I didn't get either of the research fellowships I applied for, so it's alright not everything falls in your favor. I was honestly surprised when my advisor told me that it was fine, and not to worry, as there are many other fellowships I would become eligible to apply for once I gain candidacy. 

 

I also really started working on my research (two different projects), which was honestly a nice break from only doing coursework all the time. I learned quite a bit on how to deal with weird data formats as well, which is a skill I'll probably use many more times down the road. Still, most research group meetings during the semester, if not all, were held via Zoom. Granted, this is something I'm very much used to at this point, but I do miss in-person discussions and meetings.

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At Yale, all first year students are required to do some sort of research over the summer, either through the university, or acquire an internship. I am going with the latter route, working at Argonne National Lab. I'm incredibly excited to focus on just research, without dealing with the mountains of additional work due to courses, being a graduate TA, and multiple research projects. Throughout the summer, I also have to start preparing for the physics qualifying exam, which will take place at the start of next fall, covering material from all core courses, one of which I'm still missing (EM)!