Posts by Jax Sanders

Graduate School Blog »
Posts by Jax Sanders

Professional Development: Learning By Doing

November 13, 2012 | By Jax Sanders, Ph.D. Student, Physics

Graduate classes in physics emphasize detailed mathematical exploration of concepts, and I’ve developed a much better intuition for solving analytic problems over the past three years. However, sometimes I think my classes were as much formality as learning experience, with detailed derivations taking up much of my time and leaving me little time to synthesize the physics the derivations represented. So I didn’t learn much physics until I was out of the pressure cooker of first-year classes, and I didn’t learn much in the way of practical skills either. I came out to the observatory to get the practical skills…

Published in: Student Voices

Welcome Back: A Corollary to the Theory of General Relativity

October 4, 2012 | By Jax Sanders, Ph.D. Student, Physics

I have discovered a truly marvelous example of the theory of general relativity in my time at University of Michigan. The warping of space-time by mass is typically only observed on large scales, relevant to orbiting satellites, solar systems, stars, and galaxies. This novel example of small-scale time dilation is both readily observed with simple equipment and easily reproducible in any university laboratory. I am speaking, of course, of the case where every day of grad school feels exactly the same, with little progress or accomplishment, until a year later when you look up and you have a laundry list…

Published in: Student Voices

Postcard from the Field: LIGO Hanford Observatory

August 6, 2012 | By Jax Sanders, Ph.D. Student, Physics

For the rest of 2012, I’m living in Richland, Washington, working on my thesis at the LIGO Hanford Observatory. The observatory is in the Columbia Plateau, in the middle of the Hanford Nuclear Reservation. A Manhattan Project installation turned Superfund site isn’t the most glamorous setting, but the observatory itself is a wonder. It’s one of a very small class of gravitational wave interferometers, and it’s got fascinating problems that I’m learning how to solve. Before I get too far into talking about the observatory, I’ll tell you a little about what we’re trying to find. The equations of general…

Published in: Student Voices

Two weeks in: the good, the bad, the exhausting.

July 26, 2012 | By Jax Sanders, Ph.D. Student, Physics

You may have noticed that I didn’t submit a post for June. Despite my best intentions, moving across the country interfered somewhat with my sense of time, and I lost track of the concept of monthly deadlines entirely. I’m two weeks into my position at LIGO Hanford Observatory right now, and circumstances have kept my perception of time equally muddled. It seems like I never existed in Ann Arbor, even though my calendar insists that it’s only been three weeks since I packed my life into a Ford Fiesta and headed west. My mom drove most of the way -…

Published in: Student Voices

Half of Summer in Ann Arbor

June 1, 2012 | By Jax Sanders, Ph.D. Student, Physics

It’s hard for me to write about summer in Ann Arbor because I’m so busy getting ready to leave for Washington. Either I’m at work writing code, at home packing and cleaning, on the phone trying to get hold of the leasing office of my potential apartment complex, or driving all over the state seeing family and friends before I go. I’ve been enjoying the benefits of summer in Ann Arbor, of course. First among them is that U-M’s summer break is really long. My only final exam was April 19, and school doesn’t start again until after Labor Day.…

Published in: Student Voices

Summer Plans: Go West, Girl Scientist!

April 11, 2012 | By Jax Sanders, Ph.D. Student, Physics

I grew up in the Detroit suburbs with two working parents. My mother worked as a microbiologist, and went back to school to get a master’s in industrial hygiene while I was still in elementary school. She’d bring home work often, and I peppered her with questions about the toxicology reports she was preparing. My father has worked in practically every aspect of construction; at various times, he’s built houses from the ground up, remodeled kitchens and commercial spaces, maintained industrial parks, and managed the construction of housing developments. After school, on weekends, and during the summer, I’d go to…

Published in: Student Voices

What Are You Going to Do With That?

March 16, 2012 | By Jax Sanders, Ph.D. Student, Physics

I’ve been working on a physics Ph.D. for over two years now, and although it’s an interesting and immensely satisfying process, there’s a lot of things that annoy me about it. The most annoying is the inevitable question- “what are you going to do with that?” This question is always accompanied by a snide smirk, a condescending tone, and an affected concern for my future. Although there are plenty of nasty reasons for this attitude, such as anti-intellectualism and a truly myopic view of the value of work, I can concede that it is very difficult to understand what success…

Published in: Student Voices

The Best and Only Choice

February 15, 2012 | By Jax Sanders, Ph.D. Student, Physics

The decision for me to come to the University of Michigan for graduate school wasn’t difficult. Michigan’s was the only offer that came with funding, and in the hard sciences, you don’t pay for your Ph.D. However, I was thrilled to get the offer because Michigan was my first choice. My undergraduate research experience motivated me to apply to U-M. I worked at the LIGO Hanford Observatory for two summers and loved the experience. I wanted to continue working on gravitational waves, so I applied to schools with strong gravitational wave groups. Although my advisor is the only professor working…

Published in: Student Voices

Wintry Mix: A Long-time Michigander’s Guide to Surviving a Michigan Winter

January 25, 2012 | By Jax Sanders, Ph.D. Student, Physics

“If you don’t like the weather, wait five minutes.” It’s a common saying here in Michigan, and in winter, it needs a small edit: “If you don’t like the weather, wait five minutes. It’ll probably be worse.” We might not have the icy wind of Chicago or the full lake-effect snow of Kalamazoo, but in Ann Arbor, winter weather has a uniquely annoying quality: capriciousness. Damp? Dry? Icy? Windy? Unseasonably warm? All are equally plausible, you’ll have to go to class in all of them, and by the way - we got snow in April last year. The variations on…

Published in: Student Voices

Grad School and ADHD

December 8, 2011 | By Jax Sanders, Ph.D. Student, Physics

According to the National Institute of Mental Health, 4.1% of the U.S. adult population has Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. I’m one of that 4.1%; in August, I was diagnosed with ADHD, primarily inattentive. Like most adults diagnosed with ADHD, I had ADHD as a child, but my symptoms did not become problematic until I was under so much stress that my coping mechanisms were no longer sufficient. In my case, that stress was graduate school, and I spent much of my first two years severely impaired. The worst part of it was that to an outside observer, my difficulties looked…

Published in: Student Voices

Faculty Connections: The Girl Scientist

November 17, 2011 | By Jax Sanders, Ph.D. Student, Physics

I hardly ever check my department mailbox. All of the information I need comes through e-mail, and although I pass through the mail enclave almost every day, I’m rarely motivated enough to find the stepstool and peer into my box, high up on the right side. Recently, I left my overshirt in my advisor’s office and wasn’t able to retrieve it the same day, so he put it in my mailbox. When I retrieved it, I found a small piece of card, a child’s valentine with a cheerful green dinosaur on it. The back of it read, “Sorry I missed…

Published in: Student Voices

Balance: The Lagrange Point

October 26, 2011 | By Jax Sanders, Ph.D. Student, Physics

In a rotating two-body gravitational system, such as the Earth and Sun, there are five Lagrange points. If a particle is placed at one of these points, the gravitational forces from the Earth and Sun will cancel out, and it will not move unless disturbed. The second Lagrange point is always “behind” the Earth relative to the sun, and is ideal for the placement of satellites measuring small signals. However, this point is not entirely stable, and rather than sitting stationary at the equilibrium point, a satellite will go around the Lagrange point in a non-repeating orbit, following the Earth…

Published in: Student Voices

Meet the Bloggers: Jax Sanders

September 26, 2011 | By Jax Sanders, Ph.D. Student, Physics

Ah, September. Time for a new round of classes, a new set of staggeringly ambitious research goals, and a new flurry of Frisbees to dodge on the Diag. This year, there’s something else new: the Rackham Graduate Student Blog. My name is Jaclyn Sanders, and since I’ll be sharing a lot with you over this school year, you can call me Jax. Unusually for a grad student, I’m a local girl. I grew up in Farmington Hills, Michigan, about 40 minutes northeast of Ann Arbor. I’m descended from Polish carpenters, which explains both the particular Anglicization of my last name…

Published in: Student Voices

Page 1 of 1 pages

Suggest a Story

Have a suggestion or story idea? Send it to Rackham's Blog Team.

Be Social

© 2013 The Regents of the University of Michigan

Rackham Graduate School
915 E. Washington St.
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1070

Smoke-free Campus

The University of Michigan's commitment to diversity is a central part of our mission to ensure the excellence of graduate education.