SymmetryOfImperfection

+1 if you work from home it feels like you're working 24/7.

now that I think clearly, facility should not be that important; instead look for faculty research. even in physical chemistry there's alot you can do with low budget stuff like a diode laser, CCD camera and a regular computer. i actually think you learn more from working with cheap equipment than you do from working with high level stuff. on the other hand working with ultra expensive one of a kind equipment might not prepare you for the real world. IR spectrometers, single crystal X-ray diffractometers, HPLCs, AFMs, STMs, SEMs, fluorescence microscopes, older generation lithography systems, CVD reactors, etc. are also not big ticket items for organizations; they'll be a crushing financial burden for an individual but schools can at least afford a shared analytical or fabrication laboratory for all of these. I believe the biggest difference might be in biochemistry; it costs alot to order specialized reagents and they're all expendables.

ranking is just a number. that said, it tends to be that higher ranked schools have more professors and better equipment to carry out research, and in chemistry, especially experimental physical chemistry you need some pretty high grade items.

Physics (condensed matter physics) 2/5 classes are hard as hell taught by professors that say "I have no idea" when you ask about homework; the classes have nothing to do with materials or even physics. Feels like pure math.

Eigen is correct. Professors are pretty harsh on grad students because you're adults that know what you're getting into. They're not baby sitters, to be blunt. That's what throws alot of people off, including me, and it takes getting used to. I realized that you must self teach in every single graduate class. Don't think of them as classes; think of them as enforced self study sessions preparing for a trial by fire or something like that. So indeed her harshly criticizing your work is actually good; the professor cares enough to write back. I mean, one of my professors doesn't even answer questions about the homework problems and when someone said "I need help on the homework, I'm not doing well in this class" his advice was "take the withdraw and I'll see you next year."

I was similar to process chemist. I went in thinking I was gonna be a condensed matter physicist. I realized that physics might be too much for me when in QM we had a test with inhumanely hard questions like deriving a 3-D potential from a mixed state wavefunction. Yeah, you know how in undergrad you were always given the potential and then you just had to find the eigenvalues and eigenstates? Professor really wanted to drill into our heads that "the wavefunction contains ALL the information about a quantum state." Now I think materials science might be better. That's because the emphasis is on learning the chemistry and physics of materials, not on playing mathematical acrobatics.

the thing is that originally I wanted to do materials research. The logical choice was MSE but did not get into those programs. I picked physics as a compromise. I do not feel the analytical math has helped. My math is far too weak for real theory and I am a very bad programmer; tried twice. I also did bad in econ so no quant job plus my poor programming skills exclude that. So I got thinking, if I want a materials job why not get a materials degree???

I'm a graduate student in experimental condensed matter physics. Over the last few months, I've found my motivation for physics decreasing substantially going from "I'm definitely doing my PhD in this" to "grabbing my MS and change fields"; now I'm not even sure I can withstand the MS. I thought about switching at the beginning. But I decided to give this semester my all. And I did. I do homework every weekend and every day. I am at school from 10 AM to 7 PM every day, working the whole day except for lunch. I tried to do research and read papers but the classes are too much. My grades aren't too bad. However, each and every physics assignment has been an uphill struggle taking hours for a single problem. I wouldn't mind if this was on something interesting but doing it for the Nth rigid body problem is not the greatest motivation. This sort of frustration, coupled with the realization that what I'm learning is not going to directly apply to what I'm researching, saps me of energy. My health and my research plans have taken a decline due to spending far too much time doing homework. This is just the beginning. The physics graduate sequence is 2 years so the homework situation will not be getting better. The only grad classes I'm not dreading to take are solid state physics, thermodynamics and electronics lab. I don't get a good feeling going to other classes like math methods, classical mechanics, EM and quantum - which happens to be most of physics. The problem is that the grad classes are so different from their undergrad counterparts; they are much less "physically" based and much more mathematical. They say its that way because they also need to train theory students. I understand that. My math is not too bad; I'm about middle of the road for physics students, having covered calculus, multivariable calculus, linear algebra, ODEs, PDEs, complex analysis, tensor analysis and group theory. However, as an experimental scientist, I can pursue similar research in other departments that have courses better tailored for the needs for those who work in the lab on materials and less heavily favored towards theory. Also, I'm not so passionate about my research. I find that its pretty interesting, but not the kind I'd look forward going to lab for. I'm thinking about reapplying to a materials science and engineering (MSE) program at the local state school since it would align more closely with my career goals, and the research in materials there is more applicable to my scientific interest and ability than similar research in the physics department. I believe that doing an MSE program may give a more complete understanding of materials than here in the physics program, including in research. I'm willing to call this year a learning experience and start from scratch. However I feel sort of guilty about this, and also don't want to burn bridges. My mom is saying 2 things: 1. she told me before I shouldn't do physics but I insisted in doing it and 2. I'm running from difficulty. Am I really running away from difficulty? I felt that I faced it head on but I feel I've gotten less healthy, both mentally and physically. But it feels terrible being told that I'm a quitter, which I would be. Also, the faculty here has invested in me, I'm afraid of them shooting down not only my chances to switch now, but to do anything even after I get my MS. I'll need 1-2 letters of recommendation from my current school. Can these be successfully obtained? How should I handle this?

same I don't have enough to eat and I'm so exhausted every day, both mentally and physically, that I definitely severely lost weight.

A part of being a researcher is being a manager. You learn to be a manager when dealing with undergrad students and you learn the office politics of management when you deal with other grad students. Yes I've noticed the same, unfortunately, its just how it is.

But I missed the meeting... would sending the letter NOW, after several days, make it look like I was escaping responsibility and making excuses?

I emailed a potential advisor 2 months ago about working with him; he said he's going to put me on the group list. I then asked to get started in his lab; he never replied. Afterwards I thought he just didn't want me there so I asked another professor who was willing to take me in. That professor agreed and so I didn't think about this anymore. Yesterday I got a group email from the first professor about going to a lab meeting which I just missed. The professor is this bigshot who leads a very large and well funded group. What should I do? Do I just not reply to the email, since I have no obligations to him and its such a big group (and I never started) that he probably never missed me, or should I send him an email explaining the situation?

If this is not a core class, withdrawing is OK. Seriously consider it. It won't be a permanent and potentially terminal mark on your grade the way a low grade would be.

If you have done well on the quantitative parts, you can create a sort of game with yourself that makes you learn in your best way. Take a stack of flashcards separated into piles for amino acids, nucleotides, carbohydrate, etc., label them as to what they are with small print on the back, and draw only their side chains. shuffle them. Then put them into different stacks based on their category; this exploits the same sort of pattern finding skill that is used in math. Once you've done that, reshuffle them, and "complete their structure" on a different piece of paper by drawing out the complete molecule and labeling the name of the molecule. Go back to your book and check the answer. If it is wrong, repeat. This gets sort of hard for lipids but it works for other things. EDIT - also don't forget to eventually time yourself such that you get within time limits. I've tried this technique before and its the only reason I passed o-chem.

Have you ever thought that maybe its because your thinking style is more quantitative and conceptual, rather than rote-memory? I believe biophysics, bioinformatics or physical biochemistry would be better for you. The math isn't that intense (just standard 2 years of calculus + ODEs + linear algebra is good enough; everything else they'll teach you) and the concepts are difficult and interesting. I know that if something isn't quantitative, I don't get it. If there's no math, it is hard for me to really know that I understand it or not. I bombed lower division biochemistry with a C-. That along with a bad research experience turned me off from anything bio related forever. It might be like that for you. I believe that math, when used right and in the correct amounts i.e. no 10 page derivations with obscure formalisms but at least explaining i.e. the diffusion equation and how it relates to transport across the cell membrane, give an example of how to calculate sugar diffusion into a sphere, etc, truly helps in getting to know the concepts i.e. passive transport. See currently biochemistry is taught with not just a non-quantitative attitude but an actively anti-quantitative attitude. Biochemists right now literally scoff at math. But its a grad class, so it has to be hard *somehow*. If the math is not hard, guess where they're going to make it hard?

what does PhD stand for? Philosophy doctor? haha probably not. Think pressure hell drudgery. Just think about it this way: you're doing structural biology which is likely highly quantitative and probably requires math, physics and programming skills. They play around with pipettes. If you graduate your skills transfer to finance, and their skills transfer to uh... ?????. So in the end you might be making millions on Wall Street and they'll be stuck postdocing. Now what I just said may not be true, but you can convince yourself its true. I mean you can imagine yourself rolling in cash with private airplanes and the like while the others are like the beggars in Oliver Twist saying "please, sir, a bit more porridge?" If that made you feel better then just convince yourself its true.

thank you. 1 hour is fine. you seem to live in a big city. i think its more manageable on freeways, on rural country dirt roads its probably not so manageable.

At my UG school many people were extremely lost in some of the chemistry labs.

OK, I guess the consensus is about 5 hours drive is too far for a once per month visit but 2 hours is definitely doable for once per week. The potential damage to the car and the amount of oil it uses is indeed an issue. But if there's no train to the other place, or both places are in the middle of nowhere, that's bad.

What sort of chemistry do you do? I noticed alot of burnout from people in organic chemistry, biochemistry (the cell/genetics stuff), life sciences, theoretical physics, CS and the like. Whether its the competition or the jobs, I don't know, I just know there's alot of angry organic chemistry bloggers, angry CS bloggers and angry theoretical physics bloggers... so think about that. If you really have no interest in research then you must get a job soon. After working in industry you'll be in a better position to judge.

What do you guys think is a good commute time to see friends and relatives say, once a month? What would be acceptable for every week?

I think that even with self selectivity of candidates, the selective schools (not saying how good they actually are; some highly selective schools may not be strong in some areas) will still reject more people than less selective schools regardless of self selectivity. Also, self selectivity should be by school, so the ratio between different programs should still be valid, no? Also I looked at some statistics, and it seems that the higher the ranking of the school the more applicants there are. So its like this. There are 2 departments both with research you're interested in. Could be interested in biostatistics and one professor is in statistics department and one is in biology. But the statistics program is highly selective with a <10% admission rate while biology is 20%. Does it make sense to apply to biology, even though applying to statistics may be better in the long term or you like the statistics professor a better, simply to get a better chance of actually doing biostatistics research? And would schools frown on applying to both?

If you really want to go to a few particular schools, is it possible to "hedge risks" by applying to multiple departments? In addition, I have another question regarding "hedging risk" in graduate applications. Some fields of graduate study are much more competitive than others. For example, at Northwestern, the admission rate for materials science graduates is 17%, while the admission rate for chemistry is 35% and physics 20%! I'm interested in interdisciplinary materials science/physical chemistry/condensed matter physics. I think this will also apply to those with interdisciplinary interests elsewhere such as political economics or computational biology. Does it make more sense to apply to the least selective program that still does the same research at a particular school, or to apply to more selective departments with a wider faculty selection?

Its like this... the homework is completely detached from what the lectures are. I tried asking. I asked "can you go over more specific examples of how to solve the homework problems step by step, I really don't understand how to go from the theory you provided here, to doing the homework." He just told me "oh. these problems. Um, you should talk to the TA about them. I'll try to do more specific examples in class." And instead of actually doing specific examples, he reads from the book. Another student asked him and said "I'm having difficulty on problem ____", and he literally says "oh, yeah, that's a hard problem." and doesn't answer! His English as well as handwriting is hard to understand. I ask the T.A. and he says "Your book has tens of example problems there should be one that's similar." I said no I couldn't find any. He says "you might not be looking hard enough or maybe the example is there just in a form you don't recognize." They just don't do an example problem in class so that we all know how to do stuff step by step.

yeah i see now. the exact same class can be taught in an extremely different way. Half the class is entirely lost and the other half understood so little they don't even know they're lost. Teaching yourself stuff that you simply didn't know in undergrad is HARD.