Dear students,
Fall 2009 will be my 2nd
consecutive semester as the instructor for Physics Seminar (PHYS 6/8020) here
at UT in P&A. The format of the class has changed from last semester
(more information below). I look forward
to working with both new and continuing students on the primary goals of this
class:
Goals
* This goal (#2) involves hard work – to carefully and thoughtfully define
your talk’s topic area, fully research the relevant background, prepare
effective graphics, and practice your talk until you’ve smoothed out all
possible rough spots. That means (a)
arriving at as complete an understanding of the topic as possible, (b) honing
and integrating (into your brain, sort of like memorizing) the salient points
for each slide, transition, and graphic, and (c) practicing your delivery of
the presentation until every key point is so-called ‘second nature’ for
you. It’s this level of preparation that
enables your audience to leave the talk having absorbed much of what you know
by the time you give your preparation.
** This goal depends on you, the
students; accomplishing #2 will result
in #4 – i.e. the class will gain significant insight into many areas of current
research at UT and elsewhere in Physics and closely-related fields.
Previous Format
The P&A
Dept. has two seminar courses for graduate students – one for Astronomy and the
other for Physics. The Astronomy Seminar
is an hour brown-bag lunchtime seminar which brings consistent attendance and
participation from the Astronomy faculty.
In Physics Seminar, the recent format has had each student present one
short talk per semester, approximately 15 minutes in length, on a paper, their
current research, or another assigned or chosen topic of current interest in
Physics.
New Format
In an effort to improve the
value of this course to the students, and potentially to encourage stronger faculty
participation, we will try a more substantial format in which each student will
present at least one full-length (~40 minutes) talk during the year. As in Astronomy Seminar, students in their
first semester of UT P&A graduate school will be excused from giving a talk
(they’ll speak in the 2nd half of the year).
Topic Selection
Each student is responsible
for selecting the topic of their presentation, with concurrence of the
instructor. Students engaged in active
research projects for their Masters or Doctoral studies are encouraged to
select a topic either directly related to, or strongly supportive, of their
research. Students who are not yet
engaged in research should choose a topic of interest to them, either (a) for their anticipated area of
thesis research, (b) to solidify and
present results from previous research (e.g., in the case of a student who
received a Masters degree elsewhere, or the student who is transitioning from
one area of Physics/Astronomy to another area), or (c) to explore another Physics interest they hold and to present
the results of the research on that topic to the other students.
Technical details,
and components to your presentation:
First Class
The first class will be Aug.
26th in MH4009 at 4 pm.
During this class, we will review the goals of the class, discuss scientific
presentations, choose topic areas (and specific topics for those students
speaking in the first several weeks), and answer questions you may have.
I have set up a web page with
course information, so please refer to it as you prepare for the class:
http://astro1.panet.utoledo.edu/~relling2/teach/fall09_phys_sem.html
See you Wednesday.
Randy