Currently in Cambridge, it is 50 degrees F and not only is the sun shining, the flowers are also blooming. Daffodils have sprung with a vengeance, and yesterday, what I thought was flurries turned out to be apple blossom petals.
Last week was Bumps week, which is a huge rowing tournament. Each college has several men's and women's boats participating and there are about 30 colleges, so many, many boats. Boats are staggered along the river and are disqualified if/when the boat behind them catches up to them (bumps them). The first boat across the finish line wins as usual. More on that in my next entry.
I promised last entry to comment on academics at Cambridge versus MIT. Note that my account is only applicable to my own department (m). I am finding that Cambridge is much more concerned with theory and MIT is more concerned with applications. For example, at Cambridge, you would study crystallization temperature and glass transition point by learning exactly how their graphs are derived, and probably plenty of formulas. At MIT, you would get a more condensed summary of this theory, but then learn that it is the difference between crystallization and glass transition temperatures that allow you to burn information onto a CD. In general, I prefer MIT's style because I prefer seeing the bigger picture. However, I am glad to be getting a taste of both because I do now have a more solid theoretical background. In many supervisions, a professor questions you for an hour about what steps you are taking to solve a problem and what equations those steps require or to rationalize a relationship in an equation, and you have to be on your toes.
Something I like about the Cambridge system is the lecture course format. Our lecture course is split into modules of 6-12 lectures each, so if you really don't like a subject or professor, at least you don't have to put up with it for very long. Also, it really helps to organize the subject matter. Something I miss about MIT is the lab work. Last year my labs included learning to use many machines and microscopes including a scanning electron microscope and an x-ray diffractometer, characterizing quantum dots, making battery cells, and even testing the results of a Nature article. This year, the lab experience is much lamer. This week, I am learning atomic force microscopy (AFM), which is really cool, but it's the only really cool thing I'll get to do all year. As a side note, AFM is incredible because it lets you see individual atoms. My lab partner and I were getting bored waiting for a scan to complete when our supervisor commented that although sometimes its boring, she then thinks "Oh wait, I'm looking at atoms. That's amazing!"
And now, because I couldn't really organize my thoughts, this is a mini photo essay of what's been going on over the past couple of weeks.
