Grad school

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KitemanSA
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Joined: Sun Sep 28, 2008 3:05 pm
Location: OlyPen WA

Post by KitemanSA »

Jeez guys, can you PLEASE let there be a simple discussion of grad schools without devolving into political bickering?

MSimon
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Post by MSimon »

KitemanSA wrote:Jeez guys, can you PLEASE let there be a simple discussion of grad schools without devolving into political bickering?
No.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.

KitemanSA
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Joined: Sun Sep 28, 2008 3:05 pm
Location: OlyPen WA

Post by KitemanSA »

MSimon wrote:
KitemanSA wrote:Jeez guys, can you PLEASE let there be a simple discussion of grad schools without devolving into political bickering?
No.
Seems not. :P

Solo
Posts: 261
Joined: Fri Jun 29, 2007 12:12 pm
Location: Wisconsin

Post by Solo »

I second Kiteman! Please keep the politics out of here!

@Mirari: very cool about your visit to UCLA. When did you that? I did the REU program there this past summer (2009),,and I worked with the HEDP group. (I'm actually going back this summer as well.) HEDP is in the same building as the old Electric Tokamak; my friend Rob Niederriter worked on the ET. They are converting it to a basic plasma physics device. It was really neat b/c I'd come in to the lab and the whole machine would light up from the inside when they pulsed it (they have lots of viewports).

UCLA is actually also a really good place for plasma. Their Basic Plasma Physics group is possibly the best around, and Troy Carter does alot with DIII-D. And of course I'm a big fan of the HEDP Group - they are a really neat bunch of folks doing good research.

Which reminds me, Prof. Slough at UW was gracious enough to give me a tour of his lab when I visited the grad school there. I had a blast; they are doing cool stuff, and Prof. Slough was very enthusiastic about it.

MirariNefas
Posts: 354
Joined: Thu Oct 09, 2008 3:57 am

Post by MirariNefas »

I guess it must have been five years ago now. The electric tokamak was still running, and a nice fellow gave me a little tour of the lab. I thought they were being remarkably accomodating given that I didn't schedule an appointment or anything. I was there for another purpose entirely. I walked into the wrong building whilst lost, looked through an open door and said, "Holy bleep! Is that a tokamak?"

On one of their rooms they had a sign up saying, "Warning! Big scary laser! Do not stare in beam with remaining eye"

So what's Prof. Slough's lab like?

icarus
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Joined: Mon Jul 07, 2008 12:48 am

Post by icarus »

My two cents.

Go to UW Seattle for plasma physics grad school, you will not regret it.

Make sure you take in a Scandinavian House party or two, try the vodka and blondes ...

BenTC
Posts: 410
Joined: Tue Jun 09, 2009 4:54 am

Post by BenTC »

Fixed that for you...
Make sure you take in a Scandinavian House party, try the vodka and two blondes
In theory there is no difference between theory and practice, but in practice there is.

Solo
Posts: 261
Joined: Fri Jun 29, 2007 12:12 pm
Location: Wisconsin

Post by Solo »

@MirariNefas: haha! That's a cool story. And the "big scary laser" sign was on the lab where I worked!

@Ben & icarus: I can deal with vodka and scandinavian women... haha!

Slough's actually got a couple different labs, b/c he does some of his work through a spin-off company (MSNW). They look like your typical plasma labs, lots of wires and vacuum chambers and capacitor banks -- pretty tidy tho! (Irvine's plasma lab is a total disaster zone, by contrast.) They've got several different devices, all of them for FRC's. One is a plasma-liner experiment with xenon, I think. They have a couple different merging/compression machines at various stages of being torn down and built up. And then a couple for plasma propulsion for NASA grants, I think.

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