Eugene
Mishchenko
To
prospective graduate students:
If you are interested in doing PhD
research with me, I feel obligated to “disclose” a few things. Please read them
carefully:
§ For
many people doing theoretical research might
turn out to be more boring than working in the lab. Please understand that you
will need ability to carry out a lot of and often very tedious calculations and at least
minimally enjoy it. And just when you hope your sweating is done, the real test
of your patience and determination begins, as you will have to sort out all the
mistakes that invariably had crept in along the way. Does that sound like your
definition of fun? It better be.
§ You
will work mostly alone, unlike students in experimental physics, and thus will not
enjoy lab camaraderie or use other students as the source of your own
motivation. Are you capable of “willing” yourself through difficult periods of
work?
§ Job
market for theorists, at least as far as the lifetime academic employment
concerned, is not rosy at the moment, it probably has never been. Of course there
are other employers in the bigger job market out there who might value the
skillset that PhD in theoretical physics entails, but have you really thought
about your long-term goals?
If nevertheless you are
not discouraged and want to proceed to the next step please test your enjoyment
of physics by solving and thinking through these problems
in quantum mechanics.
04/14/2013