Resources for Graduate Student at NSCL

Each graduate student at NSCL has her/his own desk with a PC, a bookshelf, and a file cabinet. Graduate student offices vary in size-some hold two students, others can accommodate four or even six students. NSCL graduate students administer the assignment of the graduate student office space and regularly suggest options for improvements.

The graduate students’ PCs are powerful enough to serve x-windows swiftly (even 2-dim plots in many colors) and run Windows NT or WIN2000. They have 17" screens or larger, so that you can see what you are doing. And they are networked via 100BaseT Ethernet to a gigabit backbone. Data analysis and simulations are done using our excellent in-house computing facilities.

The NSCL has its own research library with 24 hour access containing monographs and all pertinent journals in addition to online subscriptions. The Physics and Astronomy and Chemistry libraries are also near-by.

If you need something for your research project, the NSCL purchasing department is there to help. Purchasing approval, placement of an order, and receiving are all handled in-house-saving a lot of time and possible run-around.

NSCL has complete electronics and mechanical engineering departments and a modern machine shop equipped with a variety of CNC machines capable of building complex parts for experimental equipment. Ask to see the machine shop during your visit-it’s impressive.

For your thesis experiment you’ll write a proposal for beam time on the world’s most powerful superconducting cyclotron, under the supervision of your advisor. Your proposal will be reviewed by an external Program Advisory Committee, and if it’s approved, you’ll run your experiment. This is good practice for writing proposals; in the end, all of our students succeed in getting data.

Our graduate students routinely present their new results at important national or international conferences, and funding is available for this activity. This provides exposure to senior colleagues and helps in finding new job opportunities after graduation.

Michigan State University provides the full abundance of academic, cultural, and recreational resources of a major Tier 1 research, Big Ten university.