Undergrad Mentor Page
Here is the Society of Physics Students, Oregon State Chapter homepage: http://physics.oregonstate.edu/SPS
The Society of Physics students should be involved in adding to this page. We should include what they currently do and what resources they have to share with regards to these issues.
The undergraduates have identified several things they would like to see us do in the department. We should encourage study groups and study sessions, especially for the large introductory courses. We should also participate in events that are publicly visible like the engineering expo so people see who we are and what we do. We should also give more information about what jobs are available to people with physics degrees, and offer more career advice and placement. We would also like to encourage the undergrads to participate in outreach.
Study groups and study sessions
The society of physics students has started offering study nights, where lower division students are welcome to join the physics majors in their study room for help. This is a great opportunity for interaction between introductory students and physics majors. In the words of one SPS member: “Our goal for the study session was to provide a friendly and laid-back environment where the lower division physics students could study, and get help if necessary. Most of our volunteers also feel that teaching others allows one to understand the subject more completely than one could otherwise, so we enjoy doing it.”
Undergrads mentoring undergrads
The graduate students will be starting an informal weekly seminar series where they briefly present topics of general interest to each other, and then use that as an opportunity to brainstorm and dialogue with each other on the topic. More information about this can be found on the graduate page (graduate_students). A similar event could be held for and by undergrads. These conversations could be based on fun explanations of real physics applications such as found in the text “the flying circus of physics”, which discusses things such as how do you get a swing moving.
Other ideas
I would love to see us do more outreach - so for example when we have nicer classrooms (after the remodel) we could host local kids for things like a “haunted physics” haloween open house. There are a lot of neat demos that can be built for something like that, and the undergrads and grads combined could do the building and run the show. It would be a great long-term thing that could be built up every year, and may even be possible to get funds through SPS for something like this.
Career information
American Physical Society information for physics students: http://www.aps.org/careers/student/index.cfm
Physics Today job information: http://www.physicstoday.org/jobs/
An internship listing: http://www.fhcrc.org/science/education/Cancer%20Research%20Internships_FHCRC%20site.pdf
Outreach opportunities
It is important that we reach out beyond the university community. The smaller age gap between undergrads and high school students make them ideal for this. We should strive to find ways to get undergrads to participate in outreach with local high schools. Perhaps mentoring a high school physics project could be part of an undergrad thesis for the physics major.
There are DaVinci days in Corvallis each summer celebrating arts, sciences and technology http://www.davinci-days.org/. A group from OSU will be participating in building a kinetic sculpture for one of the festival competitions. They are interested in having people from physics participate. This would be an excellent opportunity for undergrads to put their physics knowledge into action and participate in the real construction of a large mechanical object.
Resource pages from the Minot group wiki
Funding for research: http://web.science.oregonstate.edu/~minote/wiki/doku.php?id=funding
Undergrad Advising: http://web.science.oregonstate.edu/~minote/wiki/doku.php?id=undergrad_advising Be sure to check out this page if you're planning to go to grad school
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