Land of Franklin, Lincoln and Kennedy #1

This is a first in a series of posts about my internship in US. I will write about my experiences in research, travelling around and the fun things that happened.

-1 : A Beginning in Winter

There are times when one wonders how exactly did I get here, and that is where this story begins. I was sitting in class on Theoretical Condensed Matter Physics on a cold January evening, and a notification popped up in my inbox, Dear Sandesh, I am pleased to inform you that you have been provisionally short-listed for the prestigious S.N. Bose Scholars Program 2017….

After spending a summer in Europe last year, it was my plan to travel to the US this summer. It all worked out and I managed to find a position at NIST | University of Maryland as an intern. The flight and all logistic details were managed as a part of my fellowship and I landed in the US on 2nd May with one bag packed with Indian food and the other with the usual stuff. :) Well there nothing to be said about that, is there?

0 : First Week

I met my advisor on the first day I arrived here at NIST. I was amazed at the huge breath of the campus and the wide scope of the resarch activities being carried out here. My research topic was loosely titled as Modelling of Quantum Dot sytems. Since I have been very enthusiastic about the field of quantum computation, this project fell in the right ballpark about my current research interests and I was very excited working on it.

Home, away from home

Since NIST was not exactly a school, I could not find accomodation along with other students in Gaithersburg. I was living in more like an American home, wherein I could rent out a room. The landlady was old and very helpul in getting me settled in the first few days. The people living in were also very friendly and I managed to pick their brain on a wide range of topics from beaches in South Carolina to Goethe’s poetry!

I spent my first week mostly about reading the basic physics related to my project. I also managed to meet other graduate students and postdocs in the research group. Everyone had their own type and style of research.

1 : Excursion to Washington DC

After the clouds playing spoilsport for the first weekend, I finally manged to get out on a fine and sunny Sunday morning. I took the metro from my home to Downtown DC and got off the closest station to the National Mall. Few blocks down south and my adventures officially began for this summer, with walking down the road in front of The White House!.

“There is but one rule: hunt or be hunted!”

After becoming an ardent fan of House of Cards and Designated Survivor over the last year, I could not have imagined visiting Washington DC in the summer! The National Mall is always an area of activity on the weekend. From the neck-straining height of the Washington Monument to the magnificent Capitol, DC looks lost in political history.

Capital & National Mall

Talking about history, the Smithosonian musuems are just on the stretch connecting the monument to the Capitol. I visited the National Musuem of American History, which is a vast complex spanning three floors illutrating the American past from the time of Columbus through the life of George Washington to present day.

George Washington (From National Musuem of Natural History)

The exhibits include biographies from a wide range of personalities, one of this just struck me through and thorugh, was that of Julia Child (Julia & Julia anyone?), the star of show The French Chef in 1960s. Famous personalitites such as Thomas Edison, Benjamin Franklin, Ella Fritzgerald (First Lady of Song) and Nelson Jackson (First cross country trip) are featured in full detail along with their mark on history.

2 : A trip to America’s dairyland

There are 50 Bose and 30 Khorana scholars (for students from a biology background) selected every year. This year, an orientation and an informal get-together was planned by the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Since I had arrived in the US earlier, I got to fly from Washington DC to Madison, only this time on a budget airline. After a stopover at beautiful airport at Detroit, I managed to complete the 3-hour tedious jounrney from DC to Madison.

The orientation was planned as a set of talks and group-activities amongst the scholars. I got to meet an infinitude of people, all beefed up about their topics of interest including but not limited to cancer research, glaciers and statistics of worm patterns, bubbling with enthusiasim and forever ready to strike up a conversation about their work.

We all worked in various informal activies, one of which was a logo designing competition. At the end, they took us to for sight-seeing aroung the city of Madison. Though the rains managed to play a spoil-sport for a large fraction of the time, we managed to catch nice glimples of nature around the lakeside. The visit ended at the Capitol building, which is one of the largest in the US.

Our logo | Khorana-Bose Scholars Orientation at Madison, Wisconsin

4 : Looking back at May

May is the month when summer begins in America and the sky starts to clear out. I felt the same about my perspective on physics and doing science in general. Looking forward to June!

A random path in the woods (Madison)