To Maryland and Back

I visited the University of Maryland at College Park this past week (yes, it's been like one grad school per week - fortunately I don't have a visit scheduled for finals week!) but it was a fast trip: leave early Thursday morning and get back late Friday night.

Side note: I think all this traveling has cured me a bit of my eagerness to travel - I think I'll make sure that whenever I do travel somewhere, it'll be for at least 5 days, more if it is overseas!

UMD was a good school, with a pretty flexible program, but I'm pretty sure I won't go to school there. I just didn't feel quite like I fit - not sure if I can explain it more than that. It was interesting how focused they were on telling you about the program and doing large overview-type presentations and less focused on getting students to meet with profs. If you wanted to meet with anyone, you needed to email them and arrange it yourself. I'm never quite sure who I want to meet with until after I hear more about what projects their group is actually working on, as the group websites are usually out of date. I emailed two profs last minute and was able to talk with them, and I think I could get along with them, but I just don't think I'm going to go there. In contrast, the UW was solely focused on having you meet with profs, they never did a general program or research interests overview. GT touched on both, but it was easier to do that because their visit lasted for almost two full days.

Still not sure where to go....but I've got til April 15th, right?

On another note, I visited one new coffeeshop this week and one kinda-new shop!
I'd been to Cafe Vita, located on the other side of Queen Anne, once before, but it was a rushed meeting with Dr. Reinsma and I didn't recall the atmosphere. I went there with my sis and it was pretty nice. Not the greatest tea, but it is hard to compete with the Teacup! She and I both forgot our computer power cords, so it was a short visit!


Caffe Ladro is one shop that I've always seen, but never been to. There is one on Queen Anne and in Fremont that are relatively close to school. Today, a friend and I ended up here because the Fremont Coffee Company that I usually bike to was super full this afternoon. The tea wasn't bad, all their stuff is organic and/or fair trade and overall it was a nice place to sit and work through my PChem report.

Hmm...both Ladro and Vita have men with tall hats in their logos...interesting.

Art + HP = Wordle

You didn't even have to read the 22 pages and now you know all about my honors project :)

Spring Break? More like Spring Busy

This is my spring 'break':

March 17th - finish finals
March 18th - speak at a SPU science research fair for prospective students
March 19th - ??
March 20th - Fly to Rensselear
March 21st - RPI visit day
March 22nd - Take train to NYC, meet up with Hannah
March 23rd - stay with Hannah in NYC
March 24th - Fly to AZ (midmorning)
March 25th - AZ
March 26th - AZ
March 27th - Fly to CA for conference
March 28th - Conference all day
March 29th - Disneyand morning/early afternoon; fly back to Seattle in the evening
March 30th - School starts and Radiolab show!!

Anyone want to fill in the ?? on the 19th? Why not fill up everyday! :)

Also - super excited for Radiolab, espically since Zoe Keating is coming!!!
In case you missed the last time I posted on Zoe - watch this:

Weights

Picking a grad school is worse than picking an undergrad school. (this does not bode well for job hunting....)

what feature of grad school should weight the most in my decision?
- program
- time to PhD
- advisor choice
- group size
- program size
- research areas
- number of research groups I'm interested in
- US News ranking
- stipend
- location

toss 'em all in a hat and pick one out?

The UW was an interesting visit - not as organized as GT and I'm not entirely sure they have research that really interests me. I like how the path to your PhD is really geared towards your project, your pre-lim and general exams are all based on what you are researching. I met some great profs, but I'm not sure who I would work with.

Best part though, was meeting someone who worked in my NASA lab 7 years ago! It was great to hear some stories about the people I know now and to find out about this funky plaque that hangs on the wall in my lab. Apparently, a guy I met, a current UW grad student, made it and sent it to group after one of the summers he interned there! It is basically an inside joke, a plaque that reads something like "To the Nano Friends" and lists a bunch of nicknames: Mentor Man, Rotovap, Intern Boy, and the like. I never understood it, but apparently it was his research group! Made my evening.

And this is the beauty that I saw as left the UW today:

Don't you love the mountains? They're one of the best parts about living in the Northwest!

HP

No, not Harry Potter. Honors Project.

(Basically a mini-dissertation that I don't have to defend)

I finally got around to looking at the projects in the library.

Mine will soon be residing with the other 420-ish projects. Wow. That's a lot of UScholars!

I'm also off the UW tomorrow to check out their MSE program! They have a PhD in nanotech that I'm interested in, so hopefully I'll get a good look at that program.

This is why I love Seattle

I came back from sunny GA to a gorgeous day in Seattle. I couldn't resist a ride on my bike in the sunshine!

(excuse the shaky video with weird shadows - that's what you get when you shoot on your iPhone with sunglasses on...)


Enough said.

Oh, Atlanta

After an incredibly short flight (only 4 hours!) I made it to Georgia and met up with a friend I made a NASA last summer. I must say, being picked up by a friendly face is exponentially better than taking a taxi! (Is there anyone I know at Rice, UMaryland, Rensselear?)

With the time change, I missed lunch and as much as I love my homemade trail mix, it doesn't quite cut it for me for a meal. So, we hit up this place called Fat Matt's. It's a barbecue place:

And it's really small. That tiny picture above captures about all of the interior. They had a fantastic live jazz-ish band that was playing when we arrived, and with the size of the place, we decided to enjoy their tunes while sitting outside. The food was quite good - it was a spicer/less sweet barbecue flavor.

Menu - look at those cheap prices! Sometimes I regret living in one of the most expensive cities in the country....

After a stop at a coffee shop (I am from Seattle!) that I think I could quite easily frequent as a student here, we drove a bit around campus and stopped by the library. Even though GT has something like 35,000 total students, they only have two libraries! (I think the UW has like 40)

My body is still getting used to the time shift, but so far, I like the bit of GT and Atlanta that I've seen, now off to learn more about the program.

Also, I think my high heels confuse the poor engineers here. Good thing I only brought my shortest pair!