Links for 2011-02-15

"It is interview season in my fields, and we have a few searches going on here at ProdigalU (and keeping me out of trouble). I know I've blathered on about interviews here, here, and here before, but more tips can't hurt, right? Here are a few things I've been noticing this time around:"

"In college I volunteered to register students to vote (it was the year of a presidential election), but the alarming number of times I heard questions ranging from "You have to register to vote?" to "What's the election for?" were enough to make me run away screaming. (That's aside from the people who simply said "no thank you.") I know stronger people would have seen that as a reason to stay, but like I said, I'm not actually cut out for such grand pursuits. (I also realize this says something very tragic about my school and my generation.)

I started learning about service opportunities in physics when I was interning at the American Physical Society in 2007. On a trip to an APS meeting in New Orleans, I accompanied the APS's two outreach guru's, Becky and Jessica, to a private, all-girl's elementary school, where we did a demo show for two 3rd and 5th grad classes, and it was a revelation."