National laboratories are way different than academia.
That’s been the overwhelming thought ringing in my head since I got out here.
It’s more than just the lack of classes, the lack of formal teaching
responsibilities, and the significant increase in security (I’m not really sure
if I’m even allowed to make a joke about this…). There’s a really big
difference in terms of the culture. People talk about science differently.
Sometimes I almost feel like I’m on
the floor of some stock exchange, at least back when people actually went to
the floor. Discussions of approximations and models still occur with the same
amount of frequency, but utility is the overarching motivation for most things.
I gotta say, I kinda like it.
I’m working for Charlie Starrett
and Marc Charest and goodness me those guys are smart. They’re fun to work
with, too. Marc is a brilliant computer guy from Canada, charged with teaching
my workmate, Dan, and myself how to program properly. Charlie is a WDM/DFT guru
from across the pond. He’s got a dry sense of humor and doesn’t hesitate to
throw in a quip if the opportunity is afforded to him(sound familiar?), but
he’s also incredibly helpful and quite good at explaining why we use the code
we’re using.
The project is all to do with
simulating WDM with DFT and already, I’ve got results! In spite of wanting to
learn a more modern language, all of our stuff is in fortran but goodness me
have I learned a lot of fanciness in fortran 90. More than the experience at a
national lab or exposure to new DFT stuff, the programming experience I’m
gaining is outta sight. I can’t wait to use what I’m learning for my own
research when I get back to UCI.
I won’t be using the code I wrote
at LANL though. That’d be a federal offense. And I don’t like the prospect of
prison. Speaking of prison, I still have to finish my take-home final for
Vladimir’s math class.
Cheers.
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