It’s a week into another semester, and I still can’t access my class rolls on-line. While I don’t know the names, the faces, what major they’re in, or their student number, I already know what I’m going to see. In a lab of about thirty students, there will be three or four who are real go-getters. They’ll do anything to improve their grade, will bemoan every 85 as substandard, and will constantly be in my office hours asking me for help. They won’t dare even start something without my approval, for fear that they may misstep, costing them precious points. Read more »

Posted: January 29th, 2007 under Education, Physics.
Comments: none

Some of my readers may be interested in what the glorious life of a graduate student is like. Many of my own students ask me:

“Dr. Cool (that’s what they call me), what’s it like being a graduate student? Do you get all the chicks? Do you sleep on a bed of twenty dollar bills? Have you ever known the pain of ignominious defeat?”

To answer their questions, aside from the last one (the answer is no), the life of a graduate student is not what everyone might think. Waking up at 8 AM every day of the week when you live literally ten minutes from campus can be frustrating at times. Fortunately, the man who invented the snooze button deserves a high five, but he probably already knows that. Read more »

Posted: January 28th, 2007 under Personal.
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My new personal weblog focusing pretty much exclusively on physics, mathematics, and science education in America. Hopefully, there will be fruitful content about every week or so — remarks about my research, posted problems of interest, news article about science and education, the like.

The goal here is to work on not writing about anything else as it is about writing about the subjects at hand. If I stray into ramblings about the world of politics, feel free to slap me down at any time.

Until my next update,

-Stephen

Posted: January 27th, 2007 under General.
Comments: 2