SymmetryOfImperfection

Some senior professors here literally teach zero classes and do pure research.

Synthetic chemistry is different from physical chemistry (physical chemistry here being defined as chemistry or materials research that is driven by physical instrumentation and computers, rather than wet lab reactions). Peer interactions are one of the differences.

I'm locked with the same 25 people every day for 2 weeks. Your situation is much more extreme than mine is. How come you can't meet anyone?

3 days? Try 2 weeks.

I am joking but it is indeed what some ppl think.

Lowly first years should learn to stop backtalking seniors. If a first year has an opinion that differs from the seniors, the first year should NOT try to reason with the senior. He/she shouldn't ask why either. He/she should take what the senior says as fact without talking back. Too many times, I've seen a lowly first year backtalk a senior, and its disgusting, because the first year is wrong most of the time. The only time a first year is right is when 500,000 first years backtalk a single senior. There is a reason why you are still just first years and they're seniors with numerous publications. Its because you think differently than the seniors. Stop thinking like a first year. Start thinking like a senior.

days and days of TA training and a major class being closed.

This is sort of sad, how learning new things is considered a deviation, rather than a way to broaden one's knowledge.

One of my classmates worked as a back office analyst in derivatives before the crisis. He doesn't like to talk about his job too much. I saw an ad passed around my department looking for semiconductor market researchers. Just remember: science is not just a science job with the title of "scientist" or "professor". Science can also mean an engineering, technical consulting or market research job. Don't be scared to apply to engineering positions if they fit your skillset and you have a listed degree - you have nothing to lose. Remember you have both the biophysics lab and the quantitative experience.

Thank you all for the replies. I will do that on monday.

I don't have an advisor yet, and not many students have done this before. That is why I am nervous.

Verbal measures your memory and language competence. Quant measures your reasoning competence.

My school allows PHD minors. It is just 3-4 classes that you take and you get a minor. My department usually has students take in-department minors rather than an external minor. However, I already have a MS and so have a huge amount of transfer credits, making my courseload relatively light. I am also in good shape for comps because I already passed most of them before school started. I would like to take a minor in a different but related field such as electrical engineering or materials science. How do I talk to the faculty about allowing this?

Don't worry. You have a computational/physical background. Emphasize that. You aren't the average guy whose scared of math and computers. Don't be afraid of non-technical jobs in business.

I am not disagreeing with what you say, but I do believe that Sigaba could have said it more diplomatically, and in a way that does not make it seem like he is taking sides. After all, the original poster came here to ask for advice, but possibly, mostly to vent frustration. I've already learned to not backtalk.

Just seeing if I got this correct. "Lowly graduate students should learn to stop backtalking a professor or administrator. If a graduate student has an opinion that differs from the professors, the graduate student should NOT try to reason with the professor. He/she shouldn't ask why either. He/she should take what the professor says as fact without talking back. Too many times, I've seen a lowly graduate student backtalk a professor, and its disgusting, because the graduate student is wrong most of the time. The only time a graduate student is right is when 500,000 graduate students backtalk a single professor. There is a reason why you are still just grad students and they're highly paid professors. Its because you think differently than the professors. Stop thinking like a grad student. Start thinking like a professor."

I'm stressing out bad. Decisions are tomorrow and I haven't made them. I'm scared for my future because this one decision will decide my next 4-5 years and possibly the rest of my life. I can't sleep. Every time I want to make a choice and get done with it, I think back to my huge mistake selecting my first college major. I thought I wanted to do something, but it turns out that it was a mistake that was extremely costly to only partially recover. I made the choice to go into physics and that was a great choice, but the price for picking a wrong school wasn't so big. I just went with my feelings at the time. Now the price for picking wrong is 100x bigger. This is the last degree I will ever get and it will supercede all the other stuff I've done before. I'm scared.

Nice to hear your opinions. Do you want to go into tenure track academia at a university, public sector research, or private sector? I'm wondering if the career motivation also affects people's views.

thanks. i guess most people are not willing to sacrifice everything else for research. this is very different from what my professors recommended to me though. they all said "it's just 4-5 years. don't worry about the environment". If I came straight form my BS, I probably wouldn't even think and pick the best school in research, but being a few years later and with experience, I am now a bit hesitant.

I feel like the environment for a Ph.D. program, not just the research, is important. That being said, not all the best research is done in the best environments. Some top universities are located in the middle of a desert or in very cold parts of central plains instead of major cities. Would you live in a desolate college town in the middle of the plains or in the middle of the desert, but with great research? Or would you rather attend a big city college with a lower ranking but still 1-2 professors that you'd like to work with? I'm curious as to how students straight out of undergrad vs. those with work or MS/MA experience think about this.

thank you for the help. I'm just a bit scared that lower prestige, not just of the program itself but the university's overall name recognition, would negatively affect future job searches in industry, since there is no guarantee that industrial recruiters in another industry know anything at all about my chosen field. I am also scared that even after learning all those engineering skills I will have nowhere to apply them since a human resources computer will see "physics" instead of "_______ engineering" and give me an autoreject, and won't I have prestige to fall back on. Did any of you guys have that worry when considering a high prestige school (top 20) vs a less known school (top 40-50)?

Thank you for the thoughts. I guess I should email some professors that I didn't get a chance to meet. The other professors who I did meet at the first institution seemed similar; they mostly use known instrumentation and known methods to characterize new materials. I should also email the professor at the second institution about other applications. What about the attitude and behavior of your colleagues? How important is that?

Thank you for your thoughts. I'm struggling hard with this decision, because I originally thought I wanted to go to the first institution so bad, but now that I've gone there and met with some of the professors, I'm not so sure what to think anymore.

I have been accepted by a top institution in physical chemistry/chemical physics. However, I'm not sure if this institution is for me. During my visit, I felt like I would not be able to bring out my full creative potential at this institution. Instead, I'll be just making samples, pressing buttons and analyzing data. I know I can graduate like this; I've done this stuff literally a thousand times. But I don't think I will be that passionate about it, since the “cool part" is not experimental, but rather doing the data analysis. Also, I feel like that would leave me with no hard, technical skills. It didn't help that a professor that I thought I was really interested in said something (technical) that made me feel a bit uncomfortable about whether it could even succeed in practice. At another lower ranked institution, a professor said I'll get to work on bringing a new technology into real world applications. But with that comes alot of actual engineering work - programming, optics and electronic hardware engineering. I only have one "engineering" style project under my belt, the rest of my work has been in the whole "make a sample, press a button, analyze data from machine" thing. I don't know if I can handle it. I don't know if I can make it work in a 4-5 year long project. I'm scared that midway I'll run into a wall that's decided by fundamental physical constraints on this technology or my own intellectual limits and there'll be nothing I can do about it. Another thing is that I'm not too keen on the applications of this technology. What should I do?

I think I get your feeling. You joined a professor that was crosslisted between physical and another discipline, and found out he was mostly physical. That's fine. You should do one of 2 things that would be least cost prohibitive: learn more physics that would be relevant to your lab, or change advisors. If I'm guessing right your project may be theoretical which is very challenging in terms of physical and mathematical insight required.