Monday, July 5, 2021
By:
Happy Fourth of July! (or 5th now I suppose). I hope everyone got to see some fireworks. The Lafayette show was pretty good.
This week my work was mostly what it has been, some meetings and working on things for the quantum computing workshop. I did also get to work on something new for the AAPT Summer Meeting. I'll be putting together and moderating an undergraduate panel about preparing physics students for college, that that will be exciting to be a part of.
Outside of my internship, I made some other steps towards my goal of becoming a physics teacher. Firstly I've started to make some more progress on my Fulbright application. I would really like to go to Taiwan to be an Engligh TA, since I think it would be a great way to learn about education in a different culture and strenghten my cultural literacy, a valuable attribute in a teacher.
Secondly, I met with a local teacher who was also a physics major at Purdue. She gave me some insight into what course of action I should take after I graduate. As always the real challege with this path is overcoming the outside pressures which tend to steer you away from teaching. I think it has become a problem that teaching is not seen as a respectable career choice by many people in and out of the field.
I have a lot of things lined up for next week. Meetings, my demo project, and fun activities. Tune in next time to hear about it.
Alan Wright