Some quotes I enjoy.
-
‘‘I don’t like integrals’’
-
Open a bottle when you win a grant. Drink every time something in the experiment fails.
-
Some weeks are just sad weeks. Whoops.
-
Writing an NSF proposal: Me to my advisor: ‘‘Is this even true?’’ My advisor: ’’ Probably’’
I finished a reading course on Quantum Info Meets Quantum Matter by Xiao-Gang Wen along with a few friends that gave me a first glance into topological order. While it fills me with wonder and curiosity, it is also sad as to the state in which we can observe it in real life. No amount of theory can help that as much as experiment. This helped me make the decision to stop my rotation with Professor Zaletel and work again with Professor Analytis. One of the reasons why I rotated in the first place was to see if I enjoy doing theory research.
One of my favorite things to do overall is learning about the big picture. I love reading papers to get an intuitive grasp as to what is ‘happening’, not just from a microscopic view but from a phenomenlogical view. I found that in experiment you’re asked to, “sprint towards a goal without knowing whats at the finish line or why you’re racing” as my mentor Ryan Day said. This means we do experiments without fully grasping all the physics or the overall picture and instead catch up on those details later (hopefully). I had hoped that theory would be different but a postdoc in theory told me about how often they calculate without knowing or thinking about the big picture. It seems to me that not knowing the big picture is a general graduate student thing and the only thing I can do is choose the work that I love. I love data so I’m going with experiment.
I had an early conversation with my friend Kai about this. He suggested that the graduate experience is similar for most people. It’s gonna be sad times sometimes but the point is to choose something that you like enough that you have the energy to get through those sad times.
I chose the James group because I felt that it worked the best for my academic, professional, and social needs to succeed. I’m glad I rotated away to know how other research groups work and also to see how special James’ group is.