My last week as a Visiting PhD student

Y’all….

• Simons is such a vibe! I love it here! Apparently my key card even works a day after I said I would be leaving the programme, which was awesome because I could enjoy one last round of Bibimbap and ginger boba. I keep running into super-nice people, and I am SO tired because we were up until after 1am celebrating Happy Hour, in which one of the waiters told us that we had booked a 15-top and like, 50 people showed up. It was just so much fun and I haven’t laughed so much in a long time.
• Again, I have to say that everyone is just SO nice here! People give you smiles as you make your way to grab a cup of coffee or tea, while working on whiteboards and blackboards and even on a rush to a meeting. The energy here is great and if I ever imagined what being a researcher would be like, this is pretty close to it. It’s so amazing! I almost got a bit teary-eyed the night before last, thinking of returning, but I am happy that the night after that was filled with so much joy. Quantum researchers are amazing! So far, I’ve just met some really friendly, humble but intensely passionate researchers who know how to have a good time. And a good time we do have!

So…

• My week started out after a hike with a lovely DM about being taken out for lunch. And it was amazing. We lunched at an Iranian restaurant, I got to meet Jelani, a researcher I have admired for a long time (especially his stance on Mathematics!) while he was running between appointments, with four minutes to spare. I was even able to chat with him afterwards, which was amazing! Everything has just been amazing. I got to visit some of my friends on Wednesday in San Francisco, which was also a surreal and wonderful experience! It’s just been an unforgettable time in grad school for me.
• Finally, I got to tell my host, on the day she was stepping down from her position, how much the experience meant to me. I’m super thankful she was able to make it happen. This place is such a magical and great opportunity for any researcher. It really does feel like a place one can take the time to think and do research. The whole experience was incredible for me.

Here are some photos

• A talk about homology and error-correcting codes; specifically, Homological Quantum Rotor Codes. Hilariously, this led to myself and another PhD student explaining what the dual is to another friend of ours who is a Quantum Simulation architect. I really liked that about this space in general; there was a mix of people whose background was anything from Physics, Maths, Chemistry, Computer Science and even Economics (apparently either micro or macro has some crossover, I was told, or maybe my friend was trolling me lol). Anyways, it was kind of awesome.

• I took this for my friend. He kind of resembles Bob (j/k I know you’re going to give me crap for saying this).

• This was part of the Error Correction and Neural Atom QC session. This was a fascinating talk.

• The reconfigurable atom arrays talk. It got pretty heated in terms of the conversation, but also really interesting talk. I enjoyed this part on hypergraph products (of course lol).

• Berkeley is so random sometimes idk.

• Like this place where apparently you have to get a running headstart to do the 9 and three quarter Harry Potter thing to find the restroom.

• Saint Frank’s is amazing. This is from my day in SF this past week. Highly recommend their Maple Pine Latte. Sooo good! They’re also just really friendly and nice.

• Love the Arts in the Mission. I hung out after visiting some friends and bought a card for my host here.

• This passed me as I was waiting for the bus in SF. It was the week after some people rioted and burned one of them. I spoke with someone at the workshop who lives in Berkeley who said he had some free rides for ones from another autonomous company, and also this one. I’ve only ever been in this one through a friend at X years ago (like in 2017 or something).

• Beverland is a G. Such a nice guy! He didn’t even know me and walked right up to me on the first day he arrived and started chatting with me, a student. Much appreciated! That was the general vibe, though, and people don’t care as much about what school you went to, as what you found interesting, and what you were interested in working on. I was surprised when I mentioned what I was interested in, and a postdoc told me he was super interested and told me about one of the most beautiful papers he had ever read related to that. People were just constantly willing to share knowledge. Of course, there are people who are working on things that they can’t have scooped, and there was a nice boundary that didn’t feel gate-keepery, but was respectful of that, which was appreciated.

• Calderbank gave an amazing talk. Interestingly, there was something in the Maths community I had been working on with a group on and he was also working with a postdoc on, so there is room for collaboration, I think! Plus, his postdoc is my boba buddy and just a lovely person!

• Tea time is at 3pm each day!

• Elena bought me lunch at the Iranian restaurant. She is just so nice! We also have overlap in some areas of research, and she was very keen to stay in touch. Definitely plan on doing that!

• She took a photo of me by the clock tower before we went to lunch with another professor and her student. I don’t do a lot of these, but my mom loves when I send her photos, so it worked out.

• On the way to the lab. I loved this. It says: “From here, I can go anywhere. Anchored to this desk, I see three narcissus in a slender pewter vase. On the floor by my feet is my black bag with its white clown faces, empty now of my teaching tricks, it sags. French doors open out to campus past trees, buildings, the town out, out across the land then up, up past clouds, up out to the universe planets, stars, galaxies, black holes then I return, see again the desk a highly glazed fat cup holds pens that free my imagination to soar….to soar. By Adam David Miller.

• Another tea time

• Shruti’s talk on EC and Hybrid Fusions.

And that’s it