An Update

I almost forgot I had this blog.

A little background story for those unfamiliar with who I am. I am a first year graduate student at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. As a first-year, your goals are to (1) pass classes, (2) teach undergraduates, and (3) find a research group. Actually, the most important one is the last one, but the others need to be accomplished as well.

Objectives (1) and (2) are easy to do, especially when the course you teach is general chemistry and the courses you are enrolled in you have taken as an undergraduate before. In my case, I just had to brush up some more on chemical equilibria[1] and with being a physics undergraduate I have already suffered through enough mechanics (classical, quantum, and statistical) to last me awhile. It is that pesky (3) that is seemingly difficult.

This is the step/level I am stuck on. I came here for several specific reasons, most of which seem to have gone by the wayside due to circumstances beyond my control. I have a couple of options left for me, but they are closing fast. Objective (3) has kept me the busiest. I don't burn the midnight oil on my homework or on grading quizzes. I've been burning it to try and figure out what my next move is.

I came here to do chemistry, but if push comes to shove, I may have to defect to another department/program altogether. Perhaps a masters in mathematical physics would open more doors for me? The future is a blank slate ready to be written on.

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Notes:
[1] Actually, the correct term would be to "dumb down". Apparently, chemical activities are not taught on the freshmen level...