I'm an undergraduate student at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. I'm studying physics because physics is the fucking shit. Before U of I, I went to Colorado School of Mines and Northern Arizona University.
The academic side of Mines was great but socially I had a hard time staying there for more than one year. I had little in common with most people there apart from the minimum vague interest in engineering and engineering-like fields of study. Of course, this isn't to say that there wasn't anybody cool there. I made some good friends and I have kept in touch with many of them.
In many respects, transfering from Mines to NAU was sort of a silly decision, but I'm still glad I was there for a while. The town is nice and I met some really awesome people. It was nice to live somewhere where people are so chill and laid back. I met a lot of people who take an attitude of just doing whatever makes them happy and who cares if it makes them more money in the long run. Still, I realized after a while that if I wanted to go to grad school (which I do) then I should probably go somewhere with a little stronger physics department. By stronger, I'm referring only to statistics for grad school acceptance. NAU had small classes and I got to know some of the professors there on a personal level in the two semesters I was there without even trying. I keep trying to think of a good excuse to move back there sometime. Perhaps sometime after grad school, I could go back there to teach or something. I dunno.
U of I is pretty cool. I'm always a little humbled by the level of talent and intimidated by the level of ambition of the student body here. I've not found much to do apart from going to parties and riding my bike. I've also gotten involved in a couple other clubs on campus. The physics department here is great, though. I've had some good professors and the students are all very bright. Some of the research they do here is pretty amazing. The quantum computing/cryptography group here got slashdotted for some of their work a while back. I still don't know quite what to think about the students here in general, though. Honestly, I think I just don't understand them very well yet. There;s a subtle yet substantial cultural difference here which I've not quite worked out in my head yet.
I suppose I'll make some comments about religion. I am a Naturalist. I'm using that word in the sense that I believe that all aspects of the world can be expressed in scientific terms. This is sort of the same as calling me an atheist with the exception that it allows for a scientifically explainable god (whatever that is). I'm not suggesting that people are mere machines which we can model fully with mathematics. Perhaps there will come a time when we can do such a thing, but it is so far out of reach at this point in time that it seems unlikely we will ever get there. The brain is a rather complex organ. I've never been able to understand the religious viewpoint. It is because I am unable to understand it well that I do my best to be careful about what I say of other people's views. Some people who know me may think I'm making that up because I have said some rather unflattering things of certain religions, but I really do try to have some level of empathy rather than blindly condemning something which I do not understand. I can recognize that many people's lives are enriched by their religious beliefs, though such beliefs are not for everyone. However, there are some aspecs of this, mostly political which, frankly, piss me off. I'll talk about those another time.
I don't feel like I've been articulating my thoughts too well.
https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/rkorzek2/www/
