Research Talk Reflection

Open assignment: due any time by December 4 at 11:59 PM ET · 7.5% of course grade

1 Purpose

Colloquia and seminars are how physicists share new work with each other. Speakers from Georgia Tech and other institutions present their research, and anyone is welcome to attend, including first-year students. You will not understand everything, and neither does most of the audience. Going anyway is how you start to see what research looks like beyond the classroom.

For this assignment, you will attend a physics colloquium or seminar and reflect on the experience. We discuss undergraduate research in class on November 20.

NoteOpen assignment

You may submit this assignment any time during the semester, up to December 4 at 11:59 PM ET. Talks are not held every week, so check the calendar early and do not wait until the end of the semester.

2 What to Submit

Submit a single PDF named Lastname-Firstname-Talk-Reflection.pdf that includes:

  1. Event details: the title of the talk, the speaker, the date, and the location or seminar series.
  2. Proof of attendance: a photo of you at the talk, such as a selfie with the title slide or the speaker in the background.
  3. Summary: what the talk was about, in your own words.
  4. Your understanding: what made sense to you, what did not, and any questions you still have.
  5. Reflection: what the experience was like, what surprised you, and whether it changed how you think about research or your own interests.

Upload the PDF directly to this Canvas assignment.

3 Expectations

Eligible talks. Any physics-related colloquium or seminar counts, including the School of Physics Colloquium and the research seminars listed on the School of Physics events calendar (for example, the Center for Relativistic Astrophysics and soft matter seminar series). For a physics-related talk hosted somewhere else, ask the instructor before you go.

Be honest about your understanding. A clear account of what you did and did not follow is more valuable than a summary that sounds confident but is copied from the abstract. Questions you would ask the speaker are a good sign, not a weakness.

Write in your own words. Do not reproduce the talk abstract or slides as your summary.

4 Submission Checklist

  • The talk I attended is a physics-related colloquium or seminar.
  • I included the title, speaker, date, and location or series.
  • I included a photo showing that I attended.
  • I wrote a summary, an account of my understanding, and a reflection, in my own words.
  • I have reviewed the document for clarity, formatting, spelling, and grammar.
  • I submitted my work as a PDF by December 4.

5 Helpful Resources