I have spent the last two days learning how to operate a helium-3 cryogenic system that my lab owns. It is a really cool system, with a lot of neat engineering involved, and it even allows you to change your sample without emptying the helium-4 and nitrogen reservoirs. Unfortunately, it's unlikely we'll be able to do much science with it soon because there is a nationwide liquid helium shortage, which is making it impossible for much science below 77K to proceed. My lab can't get any, another lab which does almost nothing but millikelvin measurements can't get any, and in fact the manufacturer for our helium-3 system couldn't get any to demonstrate to us how to use the system. It is certainly not a good thing for low-temperature physics, and probably eventually people will all start operating closed systems where the helium is recovered and reused, because the prices will get prohibitively high (it's just another resource we're diminishing). The helium-3 part, actually, is already a closed recovery system; 10 liters of helium-3 is $1300!

I'm really excited because I just found out there's a Jamba Juice opening on the Penn campus. This is something I really miss about California, because it's overpriced but really delicious, so I was more thrilled than you'd really think appropriate for a smoothie place. But I can't wait to go there!

Another second-year graduate student and I are trying to spearhead both restarting the women's organization in the physics department, and having a free cookies and coffee time à la INPA tea at LBL. The INPA tea was every day, with cookies, cheese, crackers, tea, and coffee, and always had at least 5 people. We're starting this once a week, with just cookies and tea available, but I'm hoping that people will show up and thus it will grow. Everyone in this department is so damn approachable, but we don't have that many events where you get to enjoy that.

EDIT: My advisor is giving me a paper to review for Nanoletters. AWESOME!

I just had the strangest final of my life. And the way I reacted to it... I really surprised myself. Let me explain.

( Read more... )

My knee feels ok, kind of sore but mostly fine. I saw a doctor last night that I really didn't like, but he gave me permission to walk around without crutches and a physical therapy referral, so that's all I need. I'm going to doublecheck what he said with a doctor I like tomorrow morning.

I filed a police report on my stolen wallet, in the middle of 33rd street outside DRL, leaning into the passenger window of a patrolcar. The cop was nice but seemed fairly horrified that I left my wallet unattended in an unlocked office. "You just put down your wallet and walked away?" "Well, it was in a backpack, on the floor..." "Where did you go?" "To class!" "Without your wallet?" :( I didn't notice it was missing until Visa called me to ask about transactions they were noticing, but I did notice that my cell phone somehow got out of my backpack and onto another student's desk. Turns out his wallet was stolen too; I wonder if the thief originally intended to steal my phone? It probably happened during quantum when no one was in the office. While I was telling other zoo-dwellers at dinner, two different people got worried and went to check their wallets were still in their desks. I had my ipod in my top desk drawer, but apparently the guy didn't look there.

Some actual nice things: Ben put lilies on my desk at work, which was really sweet. I also had a nice talk about teaching with the person who writes our lab reports. And I ran into the professor I grade for while waiting for the prof who didn't show for a meeting with me, and he asked about my knee and was really nice. The grad chair came in at our first-year dinner and also asked me about my knee... sometimes I feel a little weird when professors know things that I've told other professors. It is a small-town paranoia, that's what it is.

I hope I feel less on edge tomorrow.

Amy Gutman is the president of Penn, and she wrote this great piece about the city of Philadelphia. I remain ecstatic. :) And btw, Rittenhouse Square is where Penn put me up for my visit.

( Hidden Treasures on the Beaten Path )

Let's start with the end.

Final tally of schools

Yes: U. Washington, U. Michigan, U. Penn., Boulder, UC San Diego, UC Davis
No: Stanford, Berkeley, Cornell, UCLA

The schools that Ben and I both had options at: U. Washington, U. Michigan, U. Penn.

As you know, the winner is Penn. :)

My visit to Michigan was really pretty nice. The professors there seem approachable and have interesting research, the students are happy, the campus is nice. I was not enthused about the idea of living in Michigan, I will admit. Although I would be near Jeanine and Andrew, near my step-brother Josh, potentially near Erin and Josh, and it apparently doesn't get as frigidly cold as it does in other parts of the midwest... it still didn't fully appeal to me. The food was great, though, especially the ice cream and the Blimpy burger. I had a nice time seeing Erin and Josh, and a nice time seeing Jeanine and Andrew. Oh, and I got to see the Michigan NIR detector testing lab for SNAP... in terms of lab equipment and manpower, we win, but in terms of database, they are so far ahead. We really need to get a dedicated database person.

From there, I hopped over to Philadelphia, enduring a 3 hour delay in Chicago and a belligerent cab driver and a snafu that had me trying to pay for my room myself off a low-limit credit card. Penn was great, as you've guessed, so I've decided to relate my visit in the form of bullet points.

Pros:

Their condensed matter department is one of the most broad that I've seen. It's definitely the star of their department, and everyone is collaborating, both between theorists and experimentalists and between the hard condensed matter (materials science, nanostuff, etc.), soft condensed matter (foams, sand, etc.), and biophysics (dna properties, structural behavior, etc.) people. They are very broad in my subfield, which is awesome.

The profs I spoke to were all young, enthusiastic, and had space for more students in their labs. Almost everyone struck me as someone I could work with.

There are no prelims, no quals, no orals. They're really selective about undergraduate record because they want to be able to assume you know the things you ought to have learned. Your graduate course grades matter, because those are how they prove you know graduate-level physics rather than making you take the class and then having quals on several courses at once.

All the graduate students were happy. They said it's a great place to live and the profs are approachable and fun.

The number of women in the department was shocking to me. Of the 14 first-year graduate students right now, 7 are women. There are 6 women faculty, most of whom have tenure, all of whom are married, most of whom have kids. The grad chair said that basically because they have such a women-friendly environment, they get more highly qualified female applicants each year and they're able to admit more women. The grad chair used to be at UCLA and she said that there, they didn't get nearly as many qualified female applicants. I pretty much didn't think these sorts of conditions existed at any school anywhere for women in physics.

The campus is beautiful, lots of old brick with stunning dogwood and cherry blossoms when I was there. The physics building was also nice, old but very big and pretty nice. The school is private and apparently very good at winning grants, so everyone is well funded and there are never problems getting new equipment if you really need it.

Everyone agrees that Philly is a great place to live, with good public transportation, lots of good food, a great music scene, good classical music and opera, historical stuff, great museums, etc. etc. It's also a 1-2 hour train ride (depending on who you ask) to New York City, same to DC, and closer to Europe than I am now. It is surrounded by great places I have never experienced.

Cons:

Not as highly ranked as UW or U of M (20 as opposed to 16 and 13, repsectively). I think this is a department on its way up, though, especially in condensed matter. I don't really mind. The quality of the professors seems very high.

The students don't seem to have had as rigorous an undergraduate education as I have. Many are from liberal arts schools, whereas at the other admit weekends I was meeting people from MIT, Reed, Harvey Mudd, and other public schools like Berkeley with good physics programs. The other graduate students are cool, though, and their education is not my primary concern. Also, I've met people who did their grad work at Penn in lots of nice post-doc positions, and they apparently are very successful in academia.

Philly is flatter than the Bay Area, which I don't approve of. Also, not as many trees around the city, though lots on campus. That is something that makes me like Berkeley a lot despite its lack of nature, though, is the trees. Philly has great parks, though, and there's a huge arboretum operated by Penn in the city.

Fundamentally, it's a good choice for me and a good choice for Ben. While I'm a little scared of moving to the East Coast, it's also something I've always wanted to do for a while, and graduate school is a great opportunity. I love the west, and we'll probably return here, but this will be a great new experience.

And... and... I'll be with Ben! In a real apartment, together, working near each other, together. Permanently! Not just for the summer, not just for a little bit. It's everything we wanted. I'm so happy. :)

Hello, world!

I'm going to Penn!

Ben sent me this photo of where we would be working if we go to Penn, that is, where the CIS and physics buildings are. :)

The graduate chair actually called me and told me how enthusiastic they are about me, and a lot about their program, which seems research-centric and condensed-matter-centric. They just got a huge grant for materials science, 80% of which is earmarked for soft condensed matter. I'm really excited about visiting and seeing everything for myself.

Remember how I didn't get in to Penn?

I did.

I ran into Rich, my ex-physics major advisor, at physics tea Friday. He asked about graduate school and I told him the situation. He said, "So why didn't you come to me and ask me to contact the admissions chair at Penn?" And I was kind of like, "uh, uumm, because I'm afraid to ask people for things?" So I brought him a list of faculty at Penn, and he found some he knew, and e-mailed one saying that he knew this great student who was accepted to x, y, and z but REALLY wanted to go to Penn, and wasn't there anything they could do about that? On Friday afternoon his e-mail was passed along to the admissions chair, and this morning I was admitted.

Holy crap, I knew that things like this happened, but I never thought they would happen to me. It's like winning the lottery!

Of course, it isn't a given that we'll go to Penn... I have to see what kind of money they'll offer me, and whether their visit weekend has already passed or whether they'll pay for me to come out anyway or what. If they don't offer enough money that would seal the deal against them, because Penn is a private school and thus expensive. And I'll have to like the department and the people and the place. But still...... EEEEE!