Experimental physics in a nutshell

One of the things that drives me to be a scientist is my curiosity to understand what’s going on around me. Unfortunately, I just don’t have enough time to take all the classes that will explain everything, so I have to rely on pop culture. And so can you!

This summer, the Large Hadron Collider was started somewhere in Europe, and all I knew was that some people were worried it would destroy the world. So in case that about sums up what you know (or even if you could explain all the physics behind it), Popular Culture explains it for you:

Large Hadron Rap.

Collisions comic. (Remember, there are five parts! Click the “next” button on the right to read the next part.)

Of course we should all take a moment to realize that neither of these sources are actually Popular Culture; they are merely artifacts of nerdy people using Popular Culture’s dissemination machine in wonderful, wonderful ways. But still very nerdy ways.

Office Hours, donuts, and my love for them

I use to be completely terrified of office hours, because I was convinced that if I just sat quietly in class, the professors wouldn’t be able to tell whether I was a good student or not. But the minute you show up to office hours and talk to them, they can see through all the attempts to be intelligent, and they’ll know that you’re just another somewhat below-average student. But now I am older and hopefully a little wiser, and I know that they can tell whether you’re just another student whether or not you go into office hours. And office hours can only help you, because it means you’re talking with your professors, and they’re smarter than you are. (Or at least, they’re smarter than I am.)

I actually have a theory that professors have what we will call a “donut of smart” around them: an area around them described by some nebulous and probably complicated function that makes anyone who steps into it smarter. And the donut stays with you for a little while, once you’ve left the presence of the professor. It’s just like eating a real donut, because the sugary glow takes a while to metabolize, and can give you inspiration, but it can’t sustain you for long periods of time: you still have to learn the material (the commonplace “meat and potatoes,” if you will).

Actually, I’m still afraid of office hours, because I am always afraid that today is going to be the day that I slip up and show them that actually, I really don’t have any solid grasp of the material and I’m way less intelligent than the other person who came to office hours. But, while most of the time, I can go merrily along on meat and potatoes, sometimes you just really want a donut. (And, sometimes these donuts of smart are pretty big. How can professors maintain their svelte figures if we don’t help them out?)

Midterms…

I can never decide which is the worst part of taking a test: studying for it, actually taking it, or waiting for the results. Right now I’m firmly in the last camp, which is mostly because I just turned a take-home midterm in yesterday and now I get to marinate in fear for a week until they grade it.

Actually, I really like studying for tests, because I’m a complete nerd. It always seems like that’s the point when you pull everything together and start to understand it all within the context of everything you’ve learned. That’s when the aha moments come (those moments where, if you were in a bathtub, you would get out and run naked down the street), and those are the fun moments in learning.

I kind of enjoy taking tests, too. There’s a real adrenaline rush, and in smaller classes, those five minutes before the prof comes in with a big stack of recently photocopied paper is when the whole class bonds over their impending doom. And, when a test is going well there’s a real sense of success when you figure out a hard problem.

But I don’t know if there’s anything fun about waiting to get your grades back. Then you’re just sitting around, listening to what other people think they messed up and then trying to remember exactly what you wrote for that problem. Of course, if I were self-disciplined, I would do the smart thing and recognize that at this point, there’s nothing I can do about it now, and no reason to worry. But, alas, I have the self discipline of a wombat. What about you? What’s your (least) favorite part of exams? How much self discipline do you have?

Window Snyder visit

Last week was going by in a complete whirlwind (a lot like this week) but there were a few highlights that stand out in my memory. In fact, they’re pretty much all I remember about last week, unless I think really hard. I think my mind does this on purpose so that when I sit in my room and think to myself, “Oh come on, how bad could the next few days possibly be?” I’ve already forgotten the previous few days. But that’s midterms for you, right?

But one of the few things I do remember last week was WISP’s luncheon with Window Snyder, the Chief Security Officer for Mozilla Firefox. I went in assuming that someone who had that many capital letters in their title must be pretty stuffy, but she was amazing. I mean, that’s kind of all I can say – the lunch exists in my mind in a haze of awesome. Her central message was that if we want to succeed in science, where there’s so much working against us, we have to find something that we really love and are passionate about, and then find a way to do it. And, that if you find yourself in a job that you don’t enjoy, you should just quit.

Uh, which doesn’t sound all that inspiring, but she was all about being passionate enough about something that you are willing to pursue it and keep hold of that – and the fact that she’s done that with her own life is obvious; and amount of energy she focuses towards her job is pretty infectious. And of course, it’s not great advice for everyone – and I know this because it’s not great advice for me. Because in order to do what she’s done, you have to be really passionate about something, and I haven’t really figured out what that thing is yet. But the fact that she did it, and also that she bakes cupcakes, was still very inspiring.

Welcome

Welcome to the Women in Science Project’s new student blog. Here at WISP, we are always looking for new ways to reach the community of women scientists at Dartmouth, and we hope this blog will be one of the many resources you have at your disposal.

I’m Linden, the Communications Intern here at WISP. I’m a junior, which means that this is the year to work really hard and also, worry about my Thesis. (My general theory of college is as follows: Freshman year, you worry, “What will my college life be like?” Sophomore year: “What will my major be?” Junior year: “What will my thesis be?” And Senior year: “What will my life be?”)

But don’t worry, you won’t just be hearing about me and my theories. In fact, I’d love to hear from you! You can reach me at wispblog@dartmouth.edu. I want to know about your theories and experiences, or why you think mine are wrong.

In the interest of truly representing the full spectrum of women in science and engineering here at Dartmouth, I’ll be inviting other students to talk about their experiences here as well. I’ll also help keep you up-to-date on events happening here at Dartmouth and in the larger scientific community.