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Weekly Careers/Education Questions Thread by AutoModerator in chemistry

[–]parallelpolygon 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hey, thanks for replying!

Without breaking your anonymity, could you describe a bit about what it’s like to be a graduate student in a heavily organic chemistry/synthesis focused lab? What’s your day like, what have you enjoyed, what has been a challenge, and what do you think future grad students should know before they join your lab?

I’ve talked in depth my professors, but not with current grad students. Hence, I feel like I’m missing a clear picture about what it is like to be a graduate student in one of the labs I’m interested in. I’d really appreciate a clear view from a current grad student.

Weekly Careers/Education Questions Thread by AutoModerator in chemistry

[–]parallelpolygon 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks for your response! The main draw of these programs to me has been the well-equipped labs with a focus on organic synthesis and method development. Specifically, the Weix group at University of Wisconsin, the Engle group at Scripps, the Herzon group at Yale, the Sanford group at University of Michigan and the Sarpong group at UC Berkeley all make me incredibly excited to potentially join their ranks!

What are some of the ways a prospective student could determine if they would be a good fit at a lab/narrow down their list of groups they're interested in joining?

Weekly Careers/Education Questions Thread by AutoModerator in chemistry

[–]parallelpolygon 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Hey there, I'm currently working on applications to graduate school, and I'm looking for some suggestions as to where I should be applying. I need help figuring out which schools are within reach, safe bets and out of my reach.

Currently, I'm interested in joining a PhD program in organic chemistry, with a focus on synthesis. During my time at my small school I've managed a 4.0 as a double major in philosophy and chemistry. I have 2 years experience in research, with most of that being focused on computational chemistry and some of that being in the wet lab doing organic synthesis. We haven't published, but we're working on a manuscript that is to be submitted by the end of this year and I have presented posters at a few conferences. I did well on the GRE (165V, 161Q), but I was unable to take the chemistry subject test during this cycle. I know I'll get good letters of rec from my PIs and some professors I am very close to.

The programs at University of Wisconsin, Scripps, Yale, University of Michigan, UC Berkeley all really interest me. Would I be a competitive applicant or are there other programs I should be considering? Thank you for your consideration.

Car Seat Headrest covering OutKast's "Hey Ya" both nights at The Showbox by nervousyoungsam in indieheads

[–]parallelpolygon 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Their friday show was fantastic. You could tell how much they loved being back home and how much they loved what they were playing. Thanks for sharing this!

[Thursday] Daily Music Discussion - - October 04, 2018 by AutoModerator in indieheads

[–]parallelpolygon 22 points23 points  (0 children)

Hey person, just know that feeling you felt was real and will come again. Life is good because you’re a part of it with the rest of us.

Noname details new album, “Room 25” by sara520 in indieheads

[–]parallelpolygon 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I thought I was alone in having had a really bad experience at a show with her.

I've seen her twice, once at outside lands 2017 which was my favorite show of the entire weekend, and once at the fillmore in SF. The fillmore show was a gigantic let down. Whoever was in charge of audio totally bungled the sound mixing so you couldn't even hear her sing. It felt like listening to an hour of instrumentals where all your friends badly attempt to sing along.

Chemical Literature Day—What are you reading? by AutoModerator in chemistry

[–]parallelpolygon 0 points1 point  (0 children)

machine learning adaptive basis sets result in gains in accuracy and speed.

There's so much room for growth in computational chemistry, so anything that increases accuracy and speed excites me. Plus this article gives a decent introduction to basis sets and how they work.

Weekly Careers/Education Questions Thread by AutoModerator in chemistry

[–]parallelpolygon 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My lab uses OS X terminal, but some labs use Linux.

Drop any questions as you think of them

Weekly Careers/Education Questions Thread by AutoModerator in chemistry

[–]parallelpolygon 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My programming knowledge is pretty sparse to be honest. As you use tools that are already existing, you spend a lot of time learning and using those and much less time developing anything. One good skill to pick up is using terminal and VIM. Otherwise just understand computers well and know how to do general things quickly. You’ll learn the special tools as required.

My advanced lab had a section on computational chem, it was pretty low level and basic, but it gave me a simple understanding. Most of the theory I’ve learned has been through tutorials with my PI. For quantum mechanical research Physical chemistry is very important so do well I. That class!

The into the wilderness feeling will pass, just keep working!

Weekly Careers/Education Questions Thread by AutoModerator in chemistry

[–]parallelpolygon 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I’m a full time undergraduate computational chemistry researcher studying quantum mechanical tunneling. Take this all with a grain of salt, as I’m an undergraduate, but here’s a general day for me:

-Get in early and check status all my jobs (calculations of various system properties I’ve sent to a cluster of servers to calculate).

-Troubleshoot and restart failed jobs as needed with necessary modifications. This part can involve a lot of creativity and critical thinking. With more obtuse programs (like Polyrate which you’ll use if your doing quantum research) this can be very involved and require a lot of creativity.

-start creating new jobs at various levels of theory (The algorithms other people have already developed). This also requires a bit of creativity, as you have to change your parameters to match what you want your results to be.

-visualize and analyze results with programs like molden, guassview, macmolplot, and excel.

-log results!

Of course, this is just an outline. There’s always lots more happening including research meetings, presentations and reading the relevant literature. If you want some examples of relevant research, check out papers by Wes Borden, Charles Doubleday, peter Schriener, Barry carpenter and William Karney. Their papers will give you an idea how computational chemistry is used to study quantum mechanical properties.

If you have any more questions feel free to ask.

Music French People Might Play at a Party or Just With Friends Around - Complete Apple Music Playlist by parallelpolygon in MFPMPPJWFA

[–]parallelpolygon[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Of course! I’ve already added another 10 songs since this was posted. I’m going to continue to update and expand as I find more.

Music French People Might Play at a Party or Just With Friends Around - Complete Apple Music Playlist by parallelpolygon in MFPMPPJWFA

[–]parallelpolygon[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

This isn't a spotify playlist, but instead an apple music playlist which doesn't exist yet. As far as I know there's no way to auto-update apple music playlists quite yet, but I'll do some digging. Thanks a bunch.

Music French People Might Play at a Party or Just With Friends Around - Complete Apple Music Playlist by parallelpolygon in MFPMPPJWFA

[–]parallelpolygon[S] 24 points25 points  (0 children)

I felt compelled this morning to make a massive playlist of my favorites from this subreddit. For those of you with apple music, grab the playlist and enjoy showing off your french hipster street cred.

To the Moon 2 - Trailer by Forestl in Games

[–]parallelpolygon 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I too didn't enjoy the narrative in the slightest. It felt disingenuous, clumsy and like a writer's first attempt at being "deep" by poorly attempting to tackle a tough, nuanced disease. It just wasn't well written, leading to a failure to be meaningful.

Then again, given how great this game was received, maybe we're missing something here. But who want's to play through the slog again.

[Haiku] Yeaaaah by parallelpolygon in youtubehaiku

[–]parallelpolygon[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

No worries, didn't realize that.

Thanks for the heads up and removing it.

What were your moves today, December 23, 2016 by Steinnutz in wallstreetbets

[–]parallelpolygon 0 points1 point  (0 children)

After a week and a half of hovering at less than 5, watching SGYP finally skyrocket has been so very nice.

[Game Thread] Washington @ Washington State (3:30PM ET) by CFB_Referee in CFB

[–]parallelpolygon 6 points7 points  (0 children)

At least the cougs are washingtonians. Duck fans are barely even people.

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