I will soon be heading back

MIT is a modern institution offering impressive number of opportunities – a lot of them organized by students and funded by external sponsors. Career fairs, pitch nights, science lectures and numerous socials help students develop their engineering careers and network early on. Unlike UK institutions MIT puts large emphasis on overall development of students and real-world application of their knowledge. Although I made myself attend some of the most valuable events I turned my focus mainly to my research.

I work on powder metallurgy of tungsten-based alloys under supervision of the departmental head, Chris Schuh. Last year he has patented the technology of a new processing method that I am currently trying to improve. So far, my research has mainly been an experience on how to overcome obstacles. It is common that in experimental research it takes some time to learn how to design and set up all the experiments to get consistent results. In my case, everything that could have gone wrong went wrong - including moving of our laboratory, broken equipment and broken microscopes. My attitude has been such that the more things didn’t work the more time I put in. And as in everything the harder you work the luckier you get. In the end I have been able to observe new phenomena that I believe will improve the patented technology as well as broaden its application. Unfortunately, now I only have a month to conduct controlled experiments on the phenomena I have discovered.  I am attaching some of the pictures of the instruments I am using in my research to this report. Most of these are hi-tech devices that MIT can offer only single unit of.

Because I am finishing my Masters degree this year I have also been actively working on my future plans. I am considering continuing my academic career by doing PhD but I am also looking into Materials Science industry. An experience to point out were my interviews for Materials Engineer position at Apple – 6 hours of interviews and an hour long presentation that I gave on a given technical problem without any break. At the moment I am still trying to keep my options open and decide once I have a detailed understanding of all the possible Materials Science career paths.

At the moment I am spending most of my time in the lab. There is not much to do outside anyways because of the 2 meters of snow. If anyone is interested in discussing the comparison of Oxford and MIT, engineering job applications, science PhD applications or work authorization in the US please don’t hesitate to contact me.

Our laboratory with the argon-filled glovebox

X-ray diffractometer that I use to characterize my samples.

Trasmission Electron Microscope