Intro to Research

Why research is great
First of all, congratulations on starting your undergraduate research! In the words of Obi-Wan Kenobi, “You’ve taken your first steps into a larger world.” As part of your research experience, you can:


 * Gain deeper understanding of your class material.
 * Work hands-on with (and therefore meet/befriend) other physics majors—especially upper-division and graduate students.
 * Work closely with one or more PhD-toting professors.
 * Contribute to the scientific community.
 * Write an undergraduate thesis.
 * Get your name on scientific publications.
 * Present your work at local, regional, and even international conferences.

I don’t think I need to point out that all of these will build your resume, professional network, or both. It’s a slam-dunk career move, even if you’re not planning to end up in academia.

On top of all that, you’ve joined a particularly great research group. The work we do in this lab bridges optics and materials sciences, both of which are high-paying, high-demand fields. Recruiters tend to get excited when you tell them you know how to image materials under strain with molecular resolution in three dimensions.

Also, lasers.

Lasers are very cool.

Why research is daunting
Getting involved in research comes with a steep learning curve, especially as a freshman or sophomore. In order to contribute, you'll need to learn new skills, new math, new notation, and new physical intuitions. You'll soon find that research exposes the difference between knowledge and understanding in a unique way. For example, you might know the small angle approximation: $$\sin \theta \approx \theta$$. But understanding this approximation means knowing where it comes from, how it's derived, when it's useful, and what to do when it fails.

This steep learning curve can make research very daunting. This is compounded by the fact that things that are new to you are not necessarily new to the other members of your research group. The grad students may have been doing it for years, and your adviser has likely been at it for decades. When I first started, I had never read a scientific paper, never written a line of code, and never even heard of a Fourier transform. It was at least a year before I started to feel like I wasn't "lagging behind" the rest of the group.

It's easy to feel like an imposter among geniuses in this field. I once had the opportunity to meet Dr. Bill Phillips (who won the 1997 Nobel Prize in Physics "for development of methods to cool and trap atoms with laser light.") at an international conference. This guy was a globally recognized genius. As we talked, I told him I felt like I didn't belong there. He essentially responded, "Don't worry. We all feel like that, but it's not true." So if you're tempted to quit because you don't feel smart enough, don't you dare. Stick with it, and one day you'll look back and realize you've made a tangible impact on human knowledge.

Why this wiki exists
A common feeling among $n^\mathrm{th}$ -year researchers is grief over all the things they wish they’d known in those first $(n-1)$ years. One purpose of this wiki is to help you get up to speed as quickly as possible, thus maximizing your confidence, enjoyment, productivity, and success. It (perhaps naïvely) aims to have all the things you will eventually be expected to know and do, translated into English and compiled into a single, easy-to-read summary. It is a supplement to, not a replacement for the academic papers that you’ll eventually need to read. Because the document will likely only be used in digital form, a bibliography has been replaced with in-text links.

As you advance, you too will have the joy of knowing what you wish you’d known sooner. Before you move on, we hope you’ll take the time to contribute to this wiki!