Highs and lows

On Thursday evening I went to a Bible study organised by the FOCUS missionaries at MIT. The study was on the story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well. Although it was interesting, I'm actually writing about a tangent tonight.

The leaders decided that we should introduce ourselves in a way slightly more profound than name and year, so they asked us to give a highlight and a lowlight from our week. I hope these are of interest to you as well, so here they are.

My highlight was Outbreak on Friday evening. The more explicitly religious side of the evening was useful in its way, but I was referring more to the fellowship side. My good friends in Canberra, especially those from South 4 at Fenner, were one of the great joys of studying at ANU. I was glad to be able to find friends with whom I became similarly close while in Berkeley. I get on very well with the incoming physics class here, but the social dynamic is different so it is nice to have opportunities to feel 'at home'. I really did feel this last Friday evening: I hope my previous blog post displayed my enjoyment. I hope to get to know many of these people even better (and I do seem to be heading in that direction: I spent yesterday evening with some).

Now for the lowlight. Before explaining it, I should point out that I am somewhat well-known for not experiencing deep lows. For an MIT audience, I would say that if H = my happiness and x = the external conditions influencing it, dH/dx is small and d2H/dx2 is very large. So I don't want you to think that my low is something that's making me unhappy - simply the part of my life that's not meeting my expectations at the moment. At the same time, I did think carefully about it (albeit for a short time), so do take it seriously.

My low is really the academic side of things here at MIT. The stories I heard in April were overwhelmingly positive. They suggested, for example, that MIT courses are considerably better than those at other prestigious university/ies, and they're really a good reason to come here. I have found, however, two of my three courses somewhat disappointing. These are the first semester introductory grad courses, in quantum mechanics and statistical physics. I realised all along that I might find overlap with my undergraduate courses. I decided, however, that in order to effectively study for Part II of my general exam, I should take these courses - my American peers were in high school when I last took a course called quantum mechanics (although I have of course studied various bits and pieces since then) and statistical physics was only one semester later, so my memory needs much refreshing. The courses do, however, seem to start at a lower level and move more slowly than I was expecting.

Of itself, I don't think this is a particular problem: there have to be courses at all levels, and if I picked the wrong level I have to either do something about it or put up with it. The former, which would mean changing courses, is dangerous given that Part II is the sort of exam that does require a fair bit of study, which means I would in general be prepared to put up with a course that covers less new ground than I was hoping. My bigger problem is with the style of the courses. By this stage, we should be either performing research or preparing to do so imminently. As such, I think courses should be aimed at providing the creative analytical skills necessary for research. For my physics Honours 2008 peers, I would cite Anna's nuclear structure course as an example. It looked at the subject as an active researcher would have looked at it during the development of the subject. We would start with a model, and look at what it predicted, whether that fit with experiment, what experimental evidence suggested about refinements to the model, and how you would approach performing the aforementioned experiments.

These courses, however, are formal to (I believe) an excessive degree. They focus on keeping track of postulates, definitions, functional dependences, etc. in order to ascertain what we can prove given what. These are important things to be able to keep track of, but I really think the kind of thinking involved is that appropriate to an undergraduate consumer of knowledge rather than a graduate producer. I'm worried that the courses will stay like this, and I'll come out of them slightly better equipped to sit Part II, but no better equipped for the world of research. The problem sets (homework) also seem disappointing: long and technical rather than requiring skilful physical thinking.

I'm particularly concerned because one of the courses is taught by the professor who has been top of my list of potential advisors. He has won both awards and acclaim for his teaching, but I'm beginning to think that his style of teaching doesn't match my style of learning very well. I'll certainly talk to him about research, etc., but I may decide to look elsewhere. It's wonderful to have the chance to work with one of the best researchers in my field of interest, but advice from older students consistently suggests that a personal match of research approaches is more important.

Standing out in contrast to these is my solids course. The lecturer is approaching the subject in exactly the way I like: stripping a model down to its absolute essentials, finding some simple ways to work out what it predicts, and comparing with experiment to improve the model where it's needed (and very importantly, not 'improving' the model just because we can!). One (particularly one who has studied in ANU's department of physics / quantum science) might call it a 'John Close' approach. This method of teaching is built on the assumption that a lot of very useful physics can be done with little factual knowledge, as long as one has a good understanding of how to think about a physics system: the latter is much harder to teach, but the three lectures so far have had Senthil doing a good job!

I qualified what I have been saying before I said it, but I think it's worth doing so again. If I hated my courses it would be quick and easy to say 'I hate my courses', but that's not the case at all. I have found them a little disappointing, but because it's in a rather subtle way, it has taken some length to explain: don't take the length of my criticism to be proportional to its ferocity! Perhaps the real lesson is that ANU really does provide a world class education: I may have been spoiled before.