Graduate Education in the Columbia Physics Department

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Graduate Educationin the Columbia Physics
Department

• W.A. Zajc
• Director of Graduate Studies

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Overview

• Size
• 18-19 admits per year (target set by GSAS)
• 110 students in program
• Ph.D. program
• Required courses in first two years
• Qualifying exam
• Thesis research
• Dissertation defense
• Mean time to degree 6.2 years
• Support
• Years 1-2 Teaching Fellowship
• 9 hours per week of teaching obligations
• 2000 per month
• (research assistantship in summer)
• Subsequent years Research Assistantship,costs
  carried by grants

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Admission Statistics

• Clear increasing trend in number of applicants
• Increased selectivity
• Time correlated with condensed matter
  recruitments
• Conscious effort to increase representation of
  women in admit pool

Stormer Pinczuk Arrive
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Graduate Student Composition

• National origins
• By undergrad institution
• By citizenship ?
• mini-CUSPEA
• CUSPEA ? CU S Physics E A
• Columbia, CCNY, NYU
• Princeton
• Select group determined via
• written examination
• interviews by faculty from participating
  institutions
• 1-2 per year

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Teaching

• Average of 9 hours per week
• One 3-hour laboratory per week
• Grading of lab reports 3 hours per week
• Preparation for laboratory 1 hour per week
• Help room 1 hour
  per week
• Grading of lecture course examinations(14 hours
  per semester)
• Contact hours contingent upon satisfactory
  written aural oral competency
• Internal CU program.

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Awards and Honors

• NSFs..
• Presidential Teaching Awards
• University-wide competition
• Three awardees in past N years
• Michael Larkin (199?)
• Chad Finley (200?)
• Gabriel Perez-Giz (2003)
• Other..

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Required?? Courses

• All five of the following formal introductory
  courses    G6037/ 8 Quantum Mechanics I and
  II    G6092/ 3 Electromagnetic Theory I and
  II    G6036 Statistical Mechanics
• Two courses from the following phenomenological
  subject courses    G6050 Elementary Particle
  Physics    G6040 Nuclear Physics    G6018
  Solid State Physics G6010 Advanced
  Astrophysics     G6011 High Energy
  Astrophysics    G6060 Laser Physics
• G6070 Biophysics
• One of the following advanced theoretical
  courses    G8047-8 Advanced Quantum
  Mechanics I or II    G8069-70 Particle Physics
  I or II    G8040 General Relativity   
  G8066 Theoretical Solid State Physics   
  G8050 Advanced Mathematical Methods in
  Physics   
• One of the following special techniques courses
  OR a second course from the advanced theoretical
  courses above    G6099 Physical Phenomena   
  G6042 Experimental Methods in Nuclear
  Physics    G6080 Scientific Computing

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?

• Discussion here about ongoing study by Graduate
  Committee on course reform?
• Examined offerings at peer institutions
• Roughly similar
• Some emerging sentiment to modernize core
  offerings
• Not yet a proposal, but for example
• Reduce EM to 1 semester
• Replace with
• GR Early Universe ?
• Non-linear phenomena?
• Computational methods?
• Also rationalize advanced particle physics and
  field theory offerings

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Qualifying Examination

• Offered once per year (January)
• Level advanced undergraduate
• Format
• Three (4 hr) written exams
• Classical Physics (Mechanics, EM)
• Modern Physics (formal Quantum Mechanics, applied
  Quantum Mechanics, and Relativity)
• General Physics (Thermodynamics, Optics, HEP,
  Nuclear, Astrophysics, Atomic, Condensed Matter)
• Oral Examination by 3-person faculty committee
• Pass/Fail status determined in faculty meeting
  following detailed discussion of each students
  performance on written and oral qualifying exam,
  and in course work
• Pass ? complete course
  requirements, begin research
• Fail ? repeat entire exam
  following year
• Conditional ? repeat specific section
  following year
• Second failure ? requested to leave program
• Statistics (Past 5 years)
• 96 students
• 22 repeats
• 2 failed 2nd attempt

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Typical Program
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Distribution of Degrees

• Broken down by Exp/Theory
• By topic
• 10 outside department
• stationed off-site?

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Time To Degree

• Results from monitoring over past decade
• Times to Degree
• All (100) Avg 6.25y, Median
  6 y
• Experiment ( 54) Avg 6.29y, Median 6 y
• Theory ( 46) Avg 6.21y, Median 6 y

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Employment Data

• Relatively good employment prospects for PhDs
• Majority take postdoc
• Obvious influence of proximity to Wall Street

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Comparison

• Data from AIPs link to http//www.gradschoolshopp
  er.com/

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Some Clever Summary
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Getting Information

• Use it!
• Ask!

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Placement Exams

• Offered on Thursday, 02-Sep-04
• 1000 AM to 1200 Noon G6092-3
• (Electromagnetic Theory I and II)
• 100 PM to 300 PM G6037-8
• (Quantum Mechanics I and II)
• You are strongly encouraged to take either (or
  both) of these exams
• Pass Credit for the course
• Fail No record is kept
• Re-visiting material you know well is not a
  productive use of your time!

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Ethical Behavior (I)

• Columbia University is an academic community
  committed to fostering intellectual inquiry in a
  climate of academic freedom and integrity. Its
  members are expected to uphold these principles
  and exhibit tolerance and respect for others.
  Thus, the Graduate School condemns all forms of
  misconduct and works strenuously to assure that
  its students are accorded tolerance, dignity and
  respect. Any graduate student who believes that
  he or she is a victim of misconduct has recourse
  to the mediation and grievance procedures
  developed by the Graduate School. Students are
  encouraged to discuss problems, questions, and
  grievances with anyone in a supervisory position,
  such as an advisor, director of graduate studies,
  department chair or appropriate dean or
  university administrator...
• Full details available at http//www.columbia.edu
  /cu/gsas/G_D_Policy2003.pdf

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Ethical Behavior (II)

• Columbia University is an academic community
  committed to fostering intellectual inquiry in a
  climate of academic freedom and integrity. Its
  members are expected to uphold these principles
  and abide by the regulations of the University.
  They are also expected to obey local, state and
  federal laws. Students continue at the
  University, receive academic credits, graduate,
  and obtain degrees subject to the disciplinary
  powers of the University. The Trustees of the
  University have delegated responsibility for
  student discipline to the deans of the individual
  schools or divisions. Students should be aware
  that academic dishonesty (for example,
  plagiarism, cheating on an examination, or
  dishonesty in dealing with a faculty member or
  other University official) or violence,
  threatening behavior, or harassment are
  particularly serious offenses that will be dealt
  with severely under Deans Discipline.
• Full details available at http//www.columbia.edu
  /cu/gsas/G_D_Policy2003.pdf

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Policy on Academic and Personal Misconduct

• The Graduate School prohibits academic
  dishonesty or misconduct. Without trying to list
  every example, the following illustrate the
  different forms that academic fraud or misconduct
  can take
• 1. Cheating on examinations or tests also
  fabrication of data and/or fabrication of
  results.
• 2. Plagiarism, the failure to acknowledge
  adequately ideas, language or research of others,
  in papers, essays, dissertations or other work.
• 3. Knowingly assisting others in plagiarism, by
  making ones papers, essays, or written work
  available for such use.
• 4. Misstatement or misrepresentation in
  connection with any academic matter, such as in
  an application for admission or financial aid, or
  during a formal inquiry by University officials.
• 5. Misuse, alteration, or fabrication of
  University documents, records and credentials,
  including transcripts and I.D. cards.
• 6. Improper use of the library and its resources
  theft or purposely hoarding or hiding books or
  materials.
• 7. Misconduct in carrying out teaching or
  research responsibilities. See appendix C for
  faculty guidelines. These guidelines apply to
  anyone teaching or conducting research at
  Columbia.

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Your Role

• Why this emphasis?
• Because
• You are joining a community of scholars
• Whose medium of exchange is individual ideas and
  research results
• The community
• Your fellow students
• The Columbia physics faculty
• The associated research scientists, post-docs,
  and technicians
• Similar groups at other institutions

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The Columbia Faculty

• A broad department covering
• Condensed matter
• Astrophysics
• Particle theory
• Experimental particle physics
• Nuclear physics
• A department with
• An illustrious past
• A bright future (you)

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Condensed Matter

• Theory
• Igor Aleiner
• electron transport
• Allan Blaer
• Low T phase transitions
• Tim Halpin-Healey
• phase transitions and critical phenomena
• Andy Millis
• interacting es in metals

• Experiment
• Tony Heinz
• Surface physics w. lasers
• Philip Kim
• low-dimensional nanostructures
• Aron Pinczuk
• low-dim e systems
• Horst Stormer
• low-dim e systems
• Tomo Uemura
• mSR, high Tc

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Astrophysics

• Theory
• Andrei Beloborodov
• X-ray binaries, AGN, bursts
• Lam Hui
• cosmology
• Janna Levin
• theoretical astrophysics
• Mal Ruderman
• Compact objects

• Experiment
• Elena Aprile
• Gamma ray sources, LXe-TPC
• Charles Hailey
• Gamma ray astronomy
• Amber Miller
• CMB probes
• Reshmi Mukherjee
• gamma rays, AGN
• Stefan Westerhoff
• HiRes, AGN

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Particle Physics

• Theory
• Norman Christ
• LQCD
• Brian Greene
• strings, cosmology
• Daniel Kabat
• strings, quantum gravity
• T.D. Lee
• Everything
• Robert Mawhinney
• LQCD
• Alfred Mueller
• QCD, heavy ions
• Erick Weinberg
• strings, black holes

• Experiment
• Gustaaf Brooijmans
• D0, ATLAS
• Janet Conrad
• miniBoone, nuTeV (FNAL)
• Hal Evans
• D0
• John Parsons
• D0, ATLAS
• Frank Sciulli
• ZEUS
• Michael Shaevitz
• NuTeV, miniBoone
• Michael Tuts
• D0, ATLAS
• William Willis
• ATLAS

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Nuclear Physics

• Theory
• Miklos Gyulassy
• QCD, heavy ion theory

• Experiment
• Brian Cole
• PHENIX, proton-Nucleus
• William Zajc
• PHENIX at RHIC

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To Learn More

• Required Attend the Graduate Seminar!
• Colloquium (Mondays at 4pm)
• Various regularly scheduled seminars
• Ask!

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The Graduate Experience

• Its the same
• Continue to take classes
• Grades continue to matter
• Its different
• You will make a transition from
• a student
• to
• a researcher
• to
• an independent researcher
• The experience will have a profound affect on
  your entire career, in or out of science