- #1
alexofander
- 4
- 0
I'm currently a first year graduate student at a school that has research in AMO, Condensed Matter, Astrophysics and Particle physics (theoretical and experimental). I would like to conduct research over the summer but I'm having difficulty figuring out what I would like to research.
I would like to take a course on General Relativity, but otherwise Astrophysics isn't interesting enough for me.
I'm not the greatest at optics, but from undergrad optics is what I'm most familiar with. One of my former professors does research in optics, and my one internship involved building a MOKE imaging system. Currently I am assigned to an advisor who conducts research in AMO.
Condensed matter is interesting and very much applied, but I don't know if it's right for me. It's very technology-based, which I like, but I'm not sure if I want to do that for a career. We had a speaker talk about his career in industry and it sounded incredibly cut-throat, which doesn't appeal to me.
I've always been interested in learning QED and QCD and it seems that particle physics uses field theories the most. Every week we have a colloquium and often we've had particle physics speakers, which I find to be fascinating. The problem is I've never been exposed to particle physics before and I don't know if I'd like it once I start doing research. I also don't know what kind of job opportunities there'd be for me, experimental or theoretical.
As for theoretical and experimental research, I'm not sure which I would prefer. I had an internship involving an experiment and I enjoyed it, but I've never been involved in theoretical research. I enjoy doing problem sets but I don't know if this would be comparable to theoretical research.
For those of you who've been through this, could any of you offer any suggestions on how to figure out what subfield to get into?
Thank you kindly in advance for your responses.
I would like to take a course on General Relativity, but otherwise Astrophysics isn't interesting enough for me.
I'm not the greatest at optics, but from undergrad optics is what I'm most familiar with. One of my former professors does research in optics, and my one internship involved building a MOKE imaging system. Currently I am assigned to an advisor who conducts research in AMO.
Condensed matter is interesting and very much applied, but I don't know if it's right for me. It's very technology-based, which I like, but I'm not sure if I want to do that for a career. We had a speaker talk about his career in industry and it sounded incredibly cut-throat, which doesn't appeal to me.
I've always been interested in learning QED and QCD and it seems that particle physics uses field theories the most. Every week we have a colloquium and often we've had particle physics speakers, which I find to be fascinating. The problem is I've never been exposed to particle physics before and I don't know if I'd like it once I start doing research. I also don't know what kind of job opportunities there'd be for me, experimental or theoretical.
As for theoretical and experimental research, I'm not sure which I would prefer. I had an internship involving an experiment and I enjoyed it, but I've never been involved in theoretical research. I enjoy doing problem sets but I don't know if this would be comparable to theoretical research.
For those of you who've been through this, could any of you offer any suggestions on how to figure out what subfield to get into?
Thank you kindly in advance for your responses.