Their goals include preparation for admission to Ph.D. programs in physics or other areas such as engineering fields and medical physics, teaching positions in high schools or community colleges, and technical positions in industry with an emphasis on computing or instrumentation. The Physics Department serves this diverse group by basing its program on three components. The first component is advanced coursework in the fundamental areas of physics, the second is research experience, and the third, specialized courses in computational physics and instrumentation . Several students have published work jointly with faculty advisors in refereed journals such as The Physical Review . The faculty consider research involvement to be critical for graduate students.
All students participate in on-going faculty research through thesis or project work.
The research component of the program is critical to developing the ability to do physics instead of just studying it. Participation in research develops the ability to take on challenging problems and questions, ranging from computational methods in problems of particle physics, to fundamental questions in quantum mechanics, to development and application of new measurement techniques in the lab. Graduate students engaged in the research component of their programs work on a particular problem under the guidance a faculty member, making use of specialized equipment in the laboratory of the supervising faculty, and of the various general resources in the department and on the campus. Because of the importance the department attaches to the research aspect of the graduate program, every effort is made to see that students have the opportunity to pursue their research work full-time during at least one summer. To receive summer support, students first discuss research topics with the various faculty members.