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Hey.
I'm Dianna.
You're watching Physics
Girl, and today's
a little bit different
than my normal videos
because I wanted to do a video
about my journey into physics.
So I have with me
my editor, Jabril,
who also runs an awesome
channel, SEFD Science.
He's going to interview me.
Because I studied
physics in college,
I will not be talking
about how to get into MIT.
Because I've done
that question, too.
I don't remember my ACT scores.
Let's just jump right in.
 I want to start--
I want to place the marker.
At what point did you realize
that physics was right for you?
 That sounds like an
infomercial question.
I think the moment is
kind of a funny thing.
It's a funny concept.
Because it was kind of like
I had tried everything,
and then I was like, well,
I think physics is just
a bit above the others.
So that was the moment.
 Did you have a huge passion
for physics in high school?
 Yeah.
JABRIL: You did?
 Yeah.
JABRIL: That's interesting.
 And I loved math.
Oh, let me take you
back just a little bit.
This is my little math story.
I begged my math
teacher to teach
me pre-calc over the summer
before I went into high school.
And he did.
I liked the idea of taking
all this advanced math
when I was younger.
I started calculus
my freshman year,
but then they didn't offer
anything beyond that.
I think in some ways that
was a blessing, because I was
sort of just focusing on math.
I was forced to focus
on other things,
and I ended up studying abroad
and going to the Dominican
Republic my junior year.
[SPEAKING SPANISH]
Man, I got called
an overachiever
and a teacher's pet a lot.
I was an overachiever
and a teacher's pet,
but I just played
it down, just to be
like, no, I'm not that smart.
I wish I hadn't done that.
I wish I had known back then
that being smart and being
eager is cool.
It's fine.
It's not a big deal.
 What part of
high school was it
that made you realize
you liked physics?
 So I was really good at math.
Everyone was like, you
should take physics,
you should definitely
try out physics.
Kathy Jones was the teacher
at my school at that time.
Got to take Kathy's class.
And I don't think there
was ever a moment.
People are looking, I
think, a lot for this story
that it's like, oh, I
was staring at the stars.
And it was never
anything like that.
It was this support and
this attitude toward physics
that my physics teachers had.
They were so
enthusiastic about it,
and they went above and beyond.
They would tell us about quantum
mechanics and about relativity.
They were so excited
about it, and I
think that had a huge impact
on us to be like, yeah,
physics is cool.
 What helped you
to find that physics
is a bit above the other?
 My way of thinking
matched better with physics.
The experiments they do to
learn new physical theories
are so logical.
And then neuroscience is
something that I liked,
but again, it was like,
where do they come up
with these experiments?
It wasn't a very
clean, obvious process,
and understandably so because
humans are complicated.
Human brains are
exceptionally complicated.
Physics was like, step
one, step two, step three.
 What was your reasoning
for going to MIT?
 Oh, that's kind
of a fun question.
So I didn't want to go to MIT.
The reason I chose MIT
is because I visited MIT.
Before that, I didn't
want to go there.
I just had this
preconceived notion
that there were a ton of really
awkward, nerdy people there.
I don't know.
I guess I thought that I wasn't
awkward and nerdy at the time.
I was, so I was mistaken.
So I applied to all
these different schools.
I was wait listed at Stanford,
wait listed at Harvard,
wait listed at Columbia.
These were the other
top schools that I
guess had more liberal
arts and humanities
and were more well-rounded,
whereas MIT was definitely
for tech and science.
I didn't know until I got
there and met everybody
that there were
people doing music
and there were people
with acapella groups.
There was a chocolate club.
There were people
motorizing shopping carts.
There were people who were in
fraternities and sororities.
There were just the
gamut of people.
I wanted to study something
in science or engineering,
but I wanted to be around
a lot of different people
of different interests.
And I didn't know if I
would find that at MIT.
Maybe it would
have been different
if I'd gotten into Harvard
or gotten into Stanford.
I might have chosen those.
I can't say I'm so
glad that I didn't
get into one of those places,
because my experience at MIT
was amazing, especially
in the physics department.
The teachers were
really supportive.
There was a class I took called
statistical mechanics, I think.
It was kind of like a
thermodynamics and statistics
class.
The very first test I
got a 95 or something.
I did really, really well.
Thank you.
Hold that.
Save that.
Because the second
test I got a 50.
But one of the professors of the
class called me into his office
and was like, hey, I just
want to check in on you
and see if everything's OK.
You did really well
the first test.
We had so much hope for you.
They're like, what's going on?
Are you OK?
It wasn't like, you
were disappointing us
as a physics student.
It was like, no, we just
want to check in with you.
Whatever your major is, I think
it's really important to think
about your mental health.
 Do you think that had you
not got that mental support you
might have considered physics
to be too challenging,
maybe gone into something else?
 This is an interesting story.
I got to MIT and I was like, oh,
I loved physics in high school.
I wanted to take it
again, and I wanted
to take this specific class that
was meant for physics majors,
the class called 8012 that they
called physics for masochists.
Got into the class and then
I just bombed the first exam.
I got a D. I remember being
like, ugh, I can't do this.
The first week I was crying.
I was calling my mom, being
like, this is too hard.
I can't do it.
I went to Adam Burgasser, and
I was like, this was my score,
did I fail, should I stay in
the class, what should I do.
And he was like,
you didn't fail.
You squeaked by with
a D. Stick it out.
Come to my office hours.
And then that's when
the support started.
So I learned to go to
office hours, which
were after classes, to really
go through the concepts.
And I learned that way to
work with other students,
to work with professors,
make sure that I really
had the concepts down.
And then the second
test I did much better,
and I ended up passing
the class with a B.
So that was probably
my proudest moment
was getting a B
minus in 8012 at MIT.
I think that I was really lucky
going to MIT that I didn't feel
any type of social
anxiety or anything
about going and
talking to strangers
and going and
meeting new people.
So I went to professors' office
hours, into their offices
and emailed them.
And I know that it is
hard for some people
to put themselves out there
and to ask for that help,
but a lack of that is often the
cause of some people's failure
at their first or second shot
or whatever at school, just not
finding a way to ask for help.
 If you don't do physics
now, what is the physics
that you've done in the past?
 When I was in undergrad,
I worked in this lab
doing dark matter research.
They were searching
for dark matter,
and specifically we were making
a detector to detect neutrons
and looking for a neutron
background, a neutron showering
down on us from whatever source.
They come from a lot of sources.
So that first
group, I was working
with Jocelyn Monroe, who was a
professor at MIT at the time.
After I graduated, I did
this fellowship at Harvard
working with Anna
Frebel, helping her look
for low [INAUDIBLE]
stars, looking
at the spectra of stars.
And we were looking for the
oldest stars in the universe.
I loved both experiences,
but what I learned from both
was that physics research
just wasn't for me.
Because one of the
things that I loved most
about doing both of those
projects was the coding.
I just liked the
problem-solving aspect of it.
After my second try
at doing physics,
I was like, I'm going to just
try software engineering.
And then I worked as a software
engineer at GE for a year.
Learning physics
and doing physics
is completely different.
With physics research,
you have to stick
with one thing for a long time.
Physics experiments
just take a long time.
And I have and I've
always had an interest
in a lot of different
fields, which
is why I tried out neuroscience,
mechanical engineering,
electric engineering, all
these different things.
And so the idea of sticking
with one thing for so long
didn't appeal to me.
With science
communication, you get
to learn so many
different things.
I can make a video about
dark matter one week,
and then I can make a
video about stars the next.
I feel like this is a good time
to clarify that I did a physics
degree, but I actually did
it a little differently
than other majors.
MIT has this option
where you can either
do physics, extreme
physics, or you
could do something called
physics flex or physics B.
And you could do a focus
within your physics major.
So I focused on
electrical engineering,
and so I ended up
doing this physics
with electrical
engineering major.
 What inspired you to get the
electrical engineering flex
program?
What inspired you to do that?
 I'm not sure exactly.
I thought electricity and
magnetism was really cool,
and I was like, if I do some
kind of engineering, that's
more applicable for a job.
I think that's probably the
only time in my education
where I thought about what
would be good for a career.
It is important to think about
what career you're going to do
and what jobs are available.
It's good to look
at the numbers.
There are not that
many jobs available
for straight-up physicists
studying physics and doing
physics research.
There are more jobs for
people who are working
in the industry with physics.
And so I was like, if I
can specialize in something
with this electrical
engineering--
and through that I
took an optics lab
and I made holograms.
We did the double
slit experiment
with fringes of light.
We did all those things.
So I was like, maybe
I'll go into optics,
and that gave me a
very specific skill
that I could be more
easily hireable if I
had that specialty.
 Ms. Cowern, are you ready for
the Twitter lightning round?
 I'm ready.
 Here we go.
So is there something in physics
that you consider that can only
be learned in college?
 Kind of, yes.
Experiments.
So there are a
lot of experiments
that it's really hard to
do without the equipment
at a university.
 Very cool.
What actions of your
parents inspired you?
 Oh, man, I love them.
They were super supportive.
And seeing them also struggle
through different times.
Like, there was a time when I
think our dog got hit by a car
and they couldn't
afford for the surgery,
so they had to put-- that
was a really sad story.
But they lived through
a hurricane that
blew the roof off the
cottage they had just built.
And there were hard
times like that,
and then seeing them just power
through it was inspirational.
 Nolan Ryan asks, tips on
encouraging and sparking
my young daughter's
interest in science early?
 Yeah.
Try lots of different things.
Try going to science museums,
doing experiments at home,
doing fun puzzles, and
getting interested in math.
And playing music also
is a really good way
of learning, sort of patterns
and thinking like that.
 So Josh Peterson asked, do
you remember the first science
experiment or experiments
that you did as a kid that
really sparked your interest?
 We did a lot of
stuff in the kitchen.
I think I asked my
parents what would
happen if you burned alcohol.
So we burned some alcohol
on a plate in the kitchen.
And then burning
different types of alcohol
and burning different things,
burning different colors.
And I was like,
well, that's cool.
Why does that happen?
We used to play this
game called "mind trap."
It was a bunch of
riddle questions,
and I loved that logical way
of thinking, tests like that.
And cut.
Thank you for watching.
I hope there is something
interesting in here.
And now I'm going to put
Jabril in the hot seat.
We're going to
switch, because we're
going to go over to
Jabril's channel,
which you can check out.
The link is in the description.
We're going to talk about
his experience getting
into computer science.
So check that out.
It's going to be fun.
OK, let's switch.
 Let's do it.
You warmed it up for me.
 I miss you guys.
Another enigma of childhood
Dianna is that I hated TV.
I wouldn't watch anything
besides science programming
and documentaries,
which brings me
to the sponsor of this
episode, Curiosity Stream.
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I've just started Greek
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Yeah.
So she had demos like that.
Oh, no you didn't.
