Letter from Boston Final Projects By MASAKO YAMADA	フレームで見る  英文をプリントする  脚注をプリントする
学年末プロジェクト 大学院の学年末には、コースによって、テストが行なわれたり、研究課題が課せられたりします。雅子さんは、学年末に出される研究課題が、将来研究を続けていくための準備として非常に役に立つと実感しています。

As students progress through their graduate school careers, the content of their daily work gradually shifts from typical schoolwork to full-fledged research. As a first-year student, I spent a lot of time solving basic physics problems. All of my classes had homework sets due every week, and these were considered the crux of our education. At the end of the semester we took final exams to test our knowledge of the topics we covered.

By the time the second year rolls around, most students know what kind of research they want to do. Indeed, many join research groups and start doing real work. However, at BU, most graduate students still take a full course load until they start their third year. These courses are not the same as the mandatory courses that first-year students. The courses tend to be more specialized ― but they also tend to be more abstract.

How can something be specific and general at the same time? The answer is that the topics become more narrow, but the method of teaching and learning becomes more flexible. I've certainly noticed this in the classes I've been taking. This semester I've taken Electrodynamics II, Statistical Mechanics II and Computational Physics. None of these is a required course. I chose them for practical reasons. I decided to take electrodynamics because I thought it would help me with my comprehensive exam preparation. I took the other two courses because I thought they would help me with my research. (I'm also continuing Chinese, my luxury course.)

I think these courses have fulfilled my expectations. Perhaps because I haven't been so pressed to do weekly homework assignments, I've been much more relaxed this year. At the same time, I feel that I've learned a lot of useful things. I certainly think the weekly problem set and final exam structure of my electrodynamics course was good preparation for my upcoming exam. I especially enjoyed the statistical mechanics and computational physics classes; the topics have always interested me. Both classes had regular (although not weekly) homework assignments, but neither had a final exam. Instead, we were assigned final projects to complete over the course of a few weeks. These weren't terribly elaborate assignments and they served as a precursor to doing actual research.

The structure of the final project was quite free for both of the courses, but the projects required two very different styles of research. In my statistical mechanics course, the professor told us that we could investigate any topic related to the course. We scheduled meetings with him to discuss our ideas, and then we put the whole project together on the basis of his advice. Choosing a viable topic was an important part of the assignment, as was presenting the intermediate ideas. The solutions themselves were open-ended, since some of the topics we selected have not been solved before. I chose to analyze the evolution of notes in a Mozart sonata. Although research of this sort is common, the details of the analysis can be changed to find different things.

In my computational physics class, all of the students were assigned the same problem ― involving multiple coin tosses ― but we were given quite a bit of freedom in deciding how to solve it. We were even given a choice of computer language (Fortran, C or C++) for programming the solution. However, since the initial problem was set in stone, we had to produce specific values in our final result ― and those values had to be correct.

I think these projects outline the important aspects of research very well. First of all, one needs to pick an interesting, challenging and solvable topic. Next, one needs to outline the steps necessary to solve the problem. Finally, one has to execute those steps to produce correct results. The projects I've done for these classes are far from cutting-edge. But by doing these projects I feel that I've gotten a sense of the researcher's life that I didn't get as a first-year student. This has been an emotional boost for me, because it has reminded me of why I like physics. And it has reminded me that I have to study hard this winter to continue pursuing the topic, for my last chance to pass the comprehensive exam is coming up this month.

Shukan ST: Jan. 9, 1998

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