More Than a Feeling

Greetings, physics persons far and wide!

I finally make my maiden post, updating you on the wonders of physics on the east coast like no one else can! Maybe I’m promising more than I can deliver, but nonetheless, here we go:

I was awarded a position in the REU Program at Boston College, a mid-sized institution (~9,000) just outside the city of Boston that is administered by the Jesuits of the Society of Jesus. This is the second year BC (as you quickly find yourself calling it) has hosted an REU program, and they’re pretty ambitious about it. Week 1 has thus far included a rigorous battery of lectures, most of which center around condensed matter and material sciences, the specialties of the fine faculty here at BC.

It’s worth taking a moment to describe the type of department physics is here: unlike Truman, they are very much geared toward research. When I say that, I don’t mean that we don’t have opportunities or aren’t encouraged, but just that it’s not the focus. That’s hardly the case here where it IS the focus: million-dollar laboratories, government grants, grad students and post-docs, the whole nine yards. They’ve got their own faculty support staff unto themselves (no sharing those staff with Bio, even though they share the building with Biology, and no chemists to be found!), not to mention a big old office and virtually the entire basement to themselves. I’ve been assigned to work with Dr. Michael Naughton and his laboratory team.

Time and time again, I’ve been told that his is the “best” lab, which I’ve come to find means that they have the most projects and grants up in the air at one time, as well as the biggest physical space. Most Impressive Thing So Far: The 43 Tesla Pulse Magnet you have to lock in its own tiny room without any people before firing it. That’s not my project though, sadly. This begs an important question: What is my project? Truth be told, I don’t know yet. The Naughton Lab has so much going on that we decided to wait until a few more things shake out before I get assigned my work.

That mostly depends on how good the sample materials created by another BC lab pan out. A graduate student was examining them just this afternoon over at the Scanning Electron Microscope / Tunneling Electron Microscope facility across the way at BC’s other campus. I myself will be touring that facility with the REU group, and then staying behind after they leave to be “oriented” so that I can go work there if my project requires it! Security’s pretty crazy: foreign nationals aren’t even allowed in, which a priori I take a political objection to, but I’m not above being a little impressed at whatever lies within, that they feel it requires such security.

Following that, I have a meeting with my mentor (Dr. Naughton) and hopefully I’ll have more information about which project I’ll be assigned to by then. (There are a bunch, but explaining them all would be a bit of a waste, and I’d probably maul the science anyways…)

Right now I’m sitting in my little dorm [Note: I was recently corrected that 'dorm' is a pejorative term, with "residential hall" being the preferred nomenclature; ResLife people, you can deal with it. I sleep here, IT'S A DORM]. I share an apartment-kinda-thing (though it’s in a dorm-like building) with three other dudes, though the space we’re in was meant for six. So we each get our own room that was supposed to have two people in it. I’ve been told numerous times that this is “one of the best” dorms on campus. Eh? All I have to compare it to is Truman’s dorms, but I feel like they’d clean up in any such competition. BC has this weird apartment business going for it: having a full fridge and stove and living room is pretty nice… but sharing it with five other people? That’s more than I live with at Truman, and we’ve got an entire HOUSE. Also: I feel like if I took a misstep I might fall though one of my room-walls! Anyways, I don’t wanna complain. It’s a nice place to sleep, and plenty of room, I guess I just expected to be blown away since tuition is so much more expensive, and I was not.

I’ve had limited time to kick it in Boston, so far only one foray to the grocery, and another to get some Chipotle (which I do not hate nearly as much as I expected to) and then see a one-night-only presentation of Pulp Fiction at a restored movie theater, which was fantastic!

Anyway, gotta get to the bus stop at 8:30 tomorrow to get to the clean room, and I’ve caught something of a cold, so I’m gonna get some sleep. More science updates to follow, and I promise right here and right now to keep you abreast of my adventures in Boston proper.