Becoming a Physicist II - The Cost $

One aspect that I didn't discuss in my last post about becoming a physicist is how to finance your education.  Here are some thoughts and advice based on my experience...

COLLEGE

Going to college can be expensive.  I know that first hand and this was a huge factor on where I chose to get by bachelor degree.  I didn't have the best grades (yup, that's right - you don't have to be a genius to be a scientist) but they were nothing to sneeze at either.  I ended up getting a large scholarship to a small school in western Maryland that almost no one has ever heard of (Frostburg State University, Frostburg, MD) and smaller offers from more notable schools.  I chose Frostburg because I knew when I was in high school that I would need a graduate education to be the kind of physicist I wanted to be.  And, honestly, not many people care where you got your bachelor degree from once you have your doctorate.  A big name school can help you get into a good grad school, but it doesn't carry as much weight as you may think.  At Frostburg, I was truly able to spread my wings and distinguish myself more than I feel I could have at a bigger school.  (However, I don't know that for sure since I never really gave the big schools a chance.)  It was these distinctions that made me attractive to graduate schools (for example, I graduated in less than 4 years with a good GPA).

In the end, I got a good education and into a great graduate program with a minimum of cost.  Overall, I think I made the right choice for me.  Remember, your situation will be different from mine - you need to do what is right for you.


GRAD SCHOOL

One of the questions I get asked most often when I talk to undergraduates about going to grad school is, "Great...  And how much will that cost me?"  They are almost always surprised when I tell them that you usually get paid to get a graduate degree in physics (or biology, chemistry, astronomy, engineering, etc.).  The only science centered graduate training that I know costs a lot of money is medical school (and since this is what most people are familiar with, they apply the cost for med school to any graduate science training).

When you are accepted into a graduate program (usually Ph.D. - many physics programs, at least, do not require you earn a master degree on your way to your doctorate), you are usually accepted with a tuition wavier (meaning you don't pay any tuition) and a stipend you earn through an assistantship (usually a teaching assistantship in your early years and a research assistantship when you are performing your thesis research).  I paid nothing for my Ph.D.  They paid me to work as a physicist (remember in my last post I mentioned that grad school is more like an apprenticeship than course work? - this is an example of what I meant by that).


CONCLUSION

When working to become a Ph.D. physicist (or pretty much any scientist other than a medical doctor), the major cost involves getting you bachelor degree.  After you are accepted into grad school, costs like tuition usually disappear and you start getting paid to do what you love (I hope you love it at this point!).

This picture (about Fall 2005) is of me and some of my best friends while we were in grad school.  We all gathered at one of our apartments and made pizza from scratch - crust and all.  It was a great time!  I also like this picture because everyone in this picture ended up getting married!  (The now wife of my friend third in from the left was taking this picture.)  My husband and I are the last two on the right.

Becoming a Physicist

Lately, I've been looking back on the experiences that brought me to the point I am at now - working with LIGO as a scientist.  It made me realize that many things happened throughout my education which brought me here today.  So, for any readers out there who are thinking of becoming a scientist (not just one for LIGO) here is my advice.


HIGH SCHOOL

The bottom line about the high school experience is to learn as much as you can.  It was a little bit disappointing when I got to college that no one cared about what great things I did when I was in high school.  Colleges and universities stop caring about things like that once you have gained admission.

Therefore, the most important thing you can do is learn as much about what you want to do as you can.  I was lucky to already know what I wanted to do when I was that young, but if you don't that's fine too!  Just learn about what interests you the most at that time.  It may turn out not to be something you want to do for the rest of your life but you will still have the knowledge you gained which will help you do whatever you end up doing.  And you never know - your interests in high school may end up being your calling.

Since I knew that I wanted to be a physicist, I took all of the science that my high school offered me.  In the end, I had 1 year of biology, 1 year of chemistry, 2 years of physics, a half year of astronomy, a half year of geology and a half year of ecology.  If your high school doesn't offer this range of topics, that's fine!  Just learn as much as you can in general.

COLLEGE

In college is where you start to make choices.  What do I want to major in?  What do I want to do with my degree?  Do I want to continue on to grad school for a masters or Ph.D. or do I want to stop with a bachelors degree?

Don't panic!  Most colleges do not make you declare a major until the end of your sophomore year BUT some majors require four years worth of coursework.  Look at the requirements for the majors you are seriously considering and start taking some of the introductory classes.  This will help you figure out if this is something you want to do for a living while making sure that you have some of the course work done if you decide it is (and if it isn't, introductory classes usually count towards your general education requirements).

Once you have decided to be a scientist, you need to think about what kind of scientist you want to be.  I'm not talking about subject matter (biologist, chemist, physicist, etc.) but how much education you will need to do the work you are most interested in.  This is a good time to seek out your advisor and start telling them about what you want from your education overall, and ask what degree you will need to do that work.

If grad school appears to be in your future, you need to make sure that you get the best grades you can in the classes that are part of your major (and overall too, but a bad grade in economics is easily overlooked when you have good grades in your major field) and gain some form of research experience.

A student who has research experience has an advantage over students who don't when applying to grad schools since research is the largest component to earning a graduate degree.  There are many programs out there for you to get this experience over the summer.  For example, the NSF gives grants to colleges to have undergraduates work with professors over the summer on their research.  This program is called Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU - click here for more info).  There are also similar programs out there.  Caltech has the SURF program (Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowships) that do a lot of work with LIGO (including at the observatories in Livingston, LA and Hanford, WA) and the University of Florida has an International REU program where you can work on LIGO related research in a different country.  (Find out more about these programs on ligo.org here.)

If you are going on to grad school, you will also need to think about what you want to specialize in.   Let's say you are finishing your physics bachelors degree.  All of your work so far has been very broad and covered the foundations of physics.  In grad school, you will specialize in a particular part of physics.  I specialized in gravity.  Therefore, I am an expert on that subject matter, but if you ask me something about particle physics (like the Large Hadron Collider) I will only be able to tell you very general things about that since I am not an expert.  It is a lot like asking your neurologist (brain & spinal cord specialist) about your upset stomach - he knows generalities but you would need to see a different specialist for a deeper answer.  Having a good idea of what you want to specialize in will be helpful when applying to grad school so that they admit the right number of people for each specialty.  That's not to say that you can't change your mind later, though.


GRAD SCHOOL

Now you have your bachelors degree in hand and you have been accepted to a grad school to work some subfield of your major.  Your first year will be filled with very challenging classes that will make you think again about if this is something you REALLY want to do.  Don't lose heart!  The first year is always the hardest and when you make it through that, it gets much better.

Make sure that you find an advisor to start performing research with.  After your first 2 years or so of grad school, the rest of the time you are there will be doing research for your thesis.  Many people think that grad school is like signing up for more school like you had from 1st grade through college - classes.  Grad school has some of that, but most of it is learning by doing research.  Grad school is more like an apprenticeship than "school" as we normally think about it.

Fast-forward a few years.  You are finishing your thesis and you are getting ready to finish your masters or Ph.D.  What now?  Well that depends on what you plan on doing next.  Many people with masters degrees go on to work in industry.  Most Ph.D.s are planning on going to a position in academia (college/university faculty positions).  The interesting thing to consider is that most of these people will end up in industry and that's not a bad thing.  For those getting Ph.D.s, they have been guided to this point by other Ph.D.'s who have usually never worked outside of academia.  Therefore, they are being guided by people who don't necessarily have the experience to talk about doing anything else with their degree.  Surveys have shown that those who move on to industry are just as happy, if not more so, than their classmates who went on to become college faculty.

If you are getting a Ph.D., chances are that you will be doing a postdoctoral (postdoc) appointment next.  This is what I am doing right now and it allows to you better establish yourself in your field by doing more independent research and publishing your results.

Regardless, you are a bona fide <whatever it is you majored in>.  One of the best but scariest things about my life right now is what lays ahead...  Can I find a permanent position where I am (I would love that) or will I have to look elsewhere?  Where am I going to end up?  I really don't know the answers to these questions (yet) but I do know that I love doing LIGO research and will continue doing that wherever I end up!

Questions?

If you have any questions about becoming a scientist, feel free to contact me.  Just leave a comment below or email me at amber@livingligo.org and I will be happy to talk with you!

APS Executive Board, Council & Thanksgiving

I hope all my US readers has a nice Thanksgiving holiday!  It's been a while since I posted, so let me tell you a little about what I've been doing...

APS Executive Board & Council Meeting

My last post was about how doing professional service was a part of an academic life.  That is exactly what I went off to do between 18-19 November at the APS Executive Board and Council Meetings.  The first day, I flew out to Long Beach, CA where the meetings were taking place and, in the evening, I went to the Executive Board Dinner.  I always like these more informal gatherings since it allows me to learn more about the others and am serving with and I always learn some thing new, be it about physics or some other bit of wisdom.

 This is the view from my hotel room at the Long Beach Hyatt.  This is one of the best views I've ever had.

During the day of the 19th was the Executive Board Meeting and the Budget Committee Meeting.  This meeting is where a smaller group of people go into much more detail on topics that will be brought to the Council.  Basically, this is where many issues are debated first so that the Council Meetings proceed much more efficiently.  This was a full day of meetings for me as the Executive Board Meeting was followed by a meeting of the Budget Committee (on which I also serve).  This meeting of the Budget Committee saw the approval of the budget for next year.  While I'm not enthralled by accounting, I've learned so much about how a large society like the APS stays afloat.

The evening of the 19th was the usual Council Reception and Dinner.  This is just like the Executive Board Reception and Dinner, but we were treated to a special viewing of the Division on Fluid Dynamics' Gallery of Fluids in Motion (the Division of Fluid Dynamics meeting took place starting the day after the Council Meeting).  Then we were able to watch the incredible videos illustrating current fluid dynamics research (you can see them too here - you can also find the still images linked from that page).  My favorite one was the "Wet-Dog Shake" (found here - find the movie under "Ancillary Files" to the right of the page).

On the 20th was the Council Meeting (where I represent the Forum on Graduate Student Affairs).  These meetings are open to the membership and the usual agenda proceeds as follows:

• Approval of Minutes (8:30 AM)
• Report from the President
• Report from the Executive Officer
• Report from the Treasurer/Publisher
• Report from the Editor in Chief
• BREAK (10:10 AM)
• Fellowships
• Panel on Public Affairs
• LUNCH (Noon)
• Report from the Canadian Physical Society
• Report on Education and Diversity
• Report on Outreach
• BREAK (2:10 PM)
• Report on International Affairs
• Report from Washington
• Unit Bylaw Changes
• New Business
• CONCLUDE (3:30 PM)

There were several extra points to this regular agenda.  First was a debate on the merit of several proposed new prizes and awards to be awards by the APS or one of its units.  Next was a discussion on the formation of a new unit called the Forum on Outreach and Engaging the Public (units are special interest groups, called forums [non-research area specific] or topical groups or divisions [based on the number of members in the unit]).  Also, at every November Council Meeting, there is an election of 2nd year Councilors to the Executive Board and I was very happy to see colleagues of mine be elected.  The best part of the meeting was a lunch talk by one of APS members who worked in estimating the oil flow from the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill this summer.  It was fascinating learning how these scientists went about making the estimates and why the estimates changed several times (basically, not all of the flow was oil [there was a significant amount of methane gas] and the oil was spewing into the Gulf from many different places).

My place at the APS Council Meeting.  Even though this meeting is open to the membership, I didn't want to take a picture of the other Councilors since I didn't have their permission to post their photo on this site.

I flew home on the 21st only to ship out again to visit my family for Thanksgiving on the 23rd...

Visit to My High School Alma Mater

Since I went home to visit my family, I contacted my old high school and asked if they would be interested in me coming in and talking to students.  They were nice enough to have me (and my husband) and we got to talk to the AP Physics class about what we do at LIGO; I talked about physics and my husband talked about engineering).  The most rewarding thing for me was that I was in that class with the same teacher (Hi, Mr. Bowman!) when I went there.  And it was there that I first fell in love with Relativity and gravity.  So it was great to come back full circle.  I also got to give a few copies of the poster I worked on with the APS to them (FYI, I'm not beyond shameless self-promotion.)

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving went about as well as any family gathering goes.  It was great to see everyone, but it wasn't without its own stress.

Thanksgiving day was full of baking and cooking and eating :)  It was nice to get to see my family - especially my younger siblings!

I also got to have Thanksgiving, Round 2 with my husband's family on Saturday.  That's one of the nice things about marrying your high school sweetheart - their family usually lives close to yours and you don't have to chose who to visit on the big holidays.  Needless to say, I am very sick of turkey.

That's about all I have to talk about right now.  Maybe later I will bore you with a post about catching up on work after a trip out of town :)

Professional Service

Sorry about the slow posting this week!  I've been busy getting ready for a trip and Thanksgiving.  By themselves, they aren't that bad but I still need to get my regular work done so I've been trying to get ahead on that.  Hence, I haven't been on the blog as much as I'd like.

In my "About Me" section, I mention the 3 main parts of being an academic: research, teaching and service.  I've already talked about my research and teaching, so let me tell you a little about professional service.

Service covers basically any activity that enriches your profession but doesn't come in the form of teaching or performing research in whatever it is you do.  This could be sitting on a committee that helps ensure that the working environment is comfortable or you can serve the larger community through professional societies.  For physicists, the main professional society is the American Physical Society (APS) but I am also a member of the American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT) and the American Astronomical Society (AAS).

This week, I am traveling to the APS Board and Council Meetings.  I sit on the APS Council as the representative of the Forum on Graduate Student Affairs (FGSA).  The Council is the legal decision making body of the APS and we vote on everything from general statements, to journal subscription rates.  Councilors are elected to the Board after 2 years (of a 4 year term) on the Council.  The Board does more behind the scenes discussions on matters before they are brought to the Council for a vote.  The Board meets 5 times a year and the Council twice (luckily for me, 2 of the Board Meetings happen the day before the Council meetings).  I will be sure to post later this week on what happens at these meetings.

Service is often seen as thankless work.  In many ways, it is.  That is one of the reasons I try to find ways to serve that I personally feel are fulfilling; that way even if no one notices the work I do, I still feel good about it.  Serving on the APS Board and Council is not only fulfilling, but I also feel deeply honored since I was elected by my peers to these posts.

Photo by Ken Cole, APS

The picture above shows Gay Stewart (University of Arkansas), Stefan Zollner (now of the New Mexico State University), and me at the LaserFest gala event that was held at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History on February 12th this year.  All of us are on the APS Council and were invited to represent the APS.  For me, this was a night when being nerdy was cool!  I got to mingle with several Nobel Prize winners.  This photo really doesn't show the extent that the Smithsonian went to for this gala.  You can read more about it and see great pictures here.  This is definitely a time when service was not thankless!

Doctors Appointments and Laser Safety

Yesterday was a long day of doctors appointments for me.  Since I was preoccupied much of this summer with my kidney stone, a few of my maintenance doctors visits got pushed to the back burner.

Appointment #1 - Family Medicine

My first appointment of the day started at the family doctor where both my husband and I had appointments (we try to sync appointments like this together since we only have one car and work far away from our doctors).  I was there for blood work and to have my new doctor work with me to get me off some of the many prescriptions my old doctor had me on (this is one of the reasons I changed doctors).  Everything is looking good there and I am pleased with the plan we are working on.

Appointment #2 - Dentist

I had an appointment with my dentist about a month and a half ago to have a filling fixed.  I was in the chair and all of the odds and ends and drill bits were set out when I mentioned to my dentist that, from time to time, I get a slight twitch under my right eye.  It was happening right then and he declared that he wouldn't touch me until I get confirmation from my neurologist that this dental work would not make it worse (he was worried that the anesthetic he intended to use would effect the same nerve he believed to be causing the twitch).  I told him that this is related to my TMJ and if I relax my jaw, it goes away.  He was still uncomfortable and sent me home.

So, with a note from my neurologist in hand, I returned and finally had this taken care of.

Appointment #3 - Eye Doctor

It has been a little over a year since I blew a blood vessel behind my retina and since I wore my contacts (the eye drops they had me used could not be used with contacts).  Now that my retina in better, I needed to see the eye doctor again to have my prescription renewed so I can order new contacts!  To my surprise, my prescription hasn't changed at all!  Yea!

My visit to my eye doctor reminded me of why I go to this particular doctor.  And the story starts the laser safety at LIGO...


Laser Safety at LIGO

When a new employee, student or visitor starts working at one of the LIGO observatories, they must undergo laser safety training especially if they will be working directly with the lasers or if they will be working around the lasers.

The laser used in the last data run here at LIGO was a 35 Watt Nd:YAG laser.  The first thing that makes this laser particularly dangerous is that it is powerful.  35 Watts is the equivalent of shining 35,000 of the common red laser pointers on the same spot (so that the dot is no bigger than if you were only using one laser).  That is plenty powerful enough to burn a hole in your retina and this is an injury that will NEVER heal.  If you are lucky you will simply have a blind spot in your peripheral vision and if you are unlucky you will be permanently blinded.  The other aspect that makes this laser dangerous is that is a wavelength (color) that you can't see.  The laser produces 1064 nm (about 0.0000419 in) wavelength light which is infrared.  Since we can't see the laser at all, it can be especially difficult to avoid it.  If even the reflection of this light (that you cannot see) enters your eye, you will have a burned retina.

For these and other reasons, everyone who will work with or around the lasers must undergo laser safety training, have their eyes examined, their retina photographed and wear laser safety goggles when around the detector.  That is how I came to see my eye doctor here in Baton Rouge for the first time.  This will also not be the last time I see this doctor...  Any time a that there is a suspected laser injury to the eye, that person is sent back to the eye doctor for the whole exam again.  They then compare the how the retina looks now to how it looked before the person started working around lasers (that's why they took the first retina picture) to determine what, if any, damage was done.  Also, when someone no longer works at LIGO, they must go for an exit exam to make sure that there was no damage done that they were unaware of.

I don't have any recent pictures of me in the awful green laser safety glasses, but I do have an old one from the first time I got to take a tour of the inner workings of LIGO.  Below, is a picture of me [right] when I was a graduate student and a very good friend (and fellow graduate student) Tiffany Summerscales [left] by one of the vacuum chambers inside the LIGO Hanford Observatory (the sister observatory in Washington state to the Louisiana one).  This picture is from August 2004:

Louisiana Science Teachers' Association Meeting & X-Rays

I've been away on travel to the Louisiana Science Teachers' Association (LSTA) Meeting last week in Monroe, LA.  LIGO goes to present workshops and to advertise the Science Education Center (SEC) though a booth in the exhibit hall. 

Our booth in the exhibit hall featured a projection of the LIGO documentary "Einstein's Messengers", the Visible Vibrations exhibit from our exhibit hall, 'snacks' (inexpensive, miniature versions of exhibits that teachers can build and use in their classrooms - the Exploratorium has a nice catalog of 'snacks' here), brochures, and posters.  While it was tiring being on your feet all day interacting with the teachers, it was also extremely rewarding!  One of the most inspiring people I interacted with wasn't even a teacher.  One of the security staff was so fascinated by the Visible Vibrations exhibit, that he kept coming back and interacting with it for most of the day!  To see someone who isn't even our target audience (at least that day) exploring the physics involved was extraordinary.  On top of that, he made some of the most spectacular vibration patterns I've ever seen!

LIGO also presented two one-hour workshops.  The SEC director presented one on motors and I presented another one on the LaserFest kits that I based the LaserFest Teachers' Day on a few weeks ago (you can read more about it here).  I had enough kits for 30 attendees, but my workshop was at the end of the day on Friday and only had about 10 teachers attend.  While I was a little disappointed (my ego had me convinced that EVERYONE would want to come to MY workshop), it was also a blessing in two ways.  The first way is that I got to have a lot more one-on-one time with the teachers and they had much more time to ask deeper questions than they would have normally.  The second way is that there were extra kits to be had.  The teachers seemed quite happy when I told them they got to keep their kits and, when I asked if they would like to take another kit with them to share with other teachers at their school, their faces lit up.  Each and every one of those kits has now found a good home in a Louisiana classroom.

Today in History...

Today is the 115th anniversary of the X-ray (if you hadn't noticed from Google's Doodle for today)!  I can't count how many of these I've had in my life and how many times they have saved me from some medical trouble, everything from dental cavities to finding my kidney stone.

Speaking of which, the X-ray below is after I had a ureteral stent placed between my kidney and my bladder to bypass my kidney stone and allow my kidney to drain.  The stent is clearly visible and the kidney stone is the little shrapnel looking thing about a third of the way down the stent.  The top curl is in my kidney and the bottom is in my bladder.  I am so happy that both the stone and the stent are gone!

What I Do When I'm Not Working (and an Anniversary)

Most of the posts I've made to this blog have been almost exclusively about my work even though I want this blog to be about my life, both the scientific and the mundane. 
This passed Thursday, I only worked a half day (I've been working more 6 day weeks than not for a while now) since I had a moderate migraine.  This one wasn't bad as far as all of the headaches I've had in my life, but it was more than enough to make light hurt my eyes and make me want to curl up in bed until it goes away.  So, I took care of the work that had to be done that day (like another conference call) and spent the rest of the day tending to my migraine.  This amounted to the first decent amount of down time I've had in a while.  While I wouldn't wish migraines on anyone, I am sort of glad I have mine since they force me to stop and relax from time to time (they also can hit at times when I simply can't put my life on pause and that is when I curse them).

So, what did I do with my time?  Well, first you have to know a little bit about me...  If I had 3 words to describe myself, they would be 1) physicist, 2) vampires and 3) Halloween.  I adore vampires and have read almost 200 vampire books in the last 4 years.  I also like to get the audiobook versions of books I've already read and liked to go to sleep to; if I have already read them, I won't keep my self awake to find out what happens next.  Since my eyes hurt me too much to read, I rested in bed and listened to my favorite books while I waited for my medication to take effect.  After about 2 hours of this, I felt a little better and proceeded to read a little.

This weekend was Halloween and I ADORE the holiday.  I love all of the dark fun and the idea of getting to be someone else for an evening.  I'm not one to dress up, but since I love vampire books, it is fun to think about what the world would be like if things that went bump in the night were real.

To celebrate, my husband and I went on the haunted trail at the Cajun Country Corn Maze.  (Tip:  If you go around this time of year, just go for the haunted trail since there is no line for this - there was a line almost an 500 feet long just for the maze.  Come back later in November to do the maze.)  Below is me in the pillory at the corn maze.  I think it is just scary how washed out my face looks with a camera flash:

I also love autumn in general!  So much so, that my wedding was autumn themed the day after Halloween.  That's right, today is Derek's and my anniversary!  To celebrate, here is a picture of us just after the ceremony: