How to begin your independent study project

The final requirement for your Evening MS degree is to perform an independent study project on a topic of your choice, under the supervision of a UW faculty member. Your project supervisor will normally serve as your faculty advisor. The faculty member need not be in the Department of Physics, but must be a member of the UW Graduate Faculty (most, but not all, UW faculty are also members of the Graduate Faculty). You will be expected to devote time equivalent to what you would spend taking a course, for at least one (typically two or three) quarters to complete the project. While working on the project, you will register for PHYS 600, Independent Study, for a number of credits agreed upon by your supervisor.

When your independent study is completed, you must turn in a written report, and present the results of your study orally to a committee of two faculty members, one of whom is your project supervisor (or a Physics faculty member designated by the Evening MS Degree Program Chair, if your project supervisor is from another department). Your supervisor will provide detailed guidance regarding the written report and oral exam. The written report is not a formal thesis, but typically has the format of a technical report of moderate length. You can ask the Graduate Student Advisor (Ms Kim Hawley) to show you reports submitted by previous students to get an idea of what is expected.

Here are the steps you should follow when you are ready to do your PHYS 600 project:

  1. Decide on a project topic that is of interest to you (perhaps something related to your work, or just something you always wanted to learn more about).
  2. Consult your current faculty advisor (the Evening MS Program Chairman, or a faculty member designated by the Chair) to discuss ways your interests might intersect those of faculty members.
  3. With your advisor’s guidance, contact faculty members to discuss working under their supervision.
  4. When you have found a suitable supervisor, prepare an informal project proposal, outlining what you plan to accomplish in your project, and obtain the faculty member’s approval. Your project supervisor will become your faculty advisor for the remainder of your time in the program.
  5. Notify the Graduate Student Advisor and the Evening MS Program Chair, so their records show your new advisor’s name.

Here are the titles of some recent MS Program projects, and the faculty members who supervised them. This will give you an idea of some faculty members’ interests.

Recent Evening MS Degree Independent Study Projects and Faculty Supervisors

Project Title Faculty Supervisor
Electrodynamics and Riemannian Gravitational Interaction M. Baker
Investigating in-service teacher, college student, and high school student conceptions of Newton's Second Law: A comparative analysis L. McDermott
A Computer Simulation of the X-ray Fluorescence Holographic Technique in Crystallography L. Sorensen
EPR Correlations in Annihilation Photon Experiments L. Sorensen
Measurement of Tip-Sample Forces in Tapping Atomic Force S. Fain
The Effect of the Scattering Phase Shift Delta on Atomic Resolution Internal source X-ray Holography L. Crum, L. Sorensen
Ultrasound Reflection from Specular Targets in Homogeneous and Inhomogeneous Media R. Ingalls
Automatic Pattern Recognition of Particle Beam Tracks using Clustering Methods and User-Interactive Mode J. Wilkes
Neural Networks: A Back-propagation Network for Particle Identification in a Neutrino Detector J. Wilkes

RJW, 3/12/98