Tuesday, June 29, 2010

UT - First Impressions

Out of 27,107 undergrads and 6,101 grad students, I am the only one at UT with the last name of Urffer.  Learned that at the card office today, and I thought, "Damn, I am one of a kind!"  The more I think about it the less significant it seems - after all, there are no Kummers, Kanters or Tarbets.  There are 27 Flynns though, and 40 Wards. 

On first impressions UT looks like the ugliest university campus I have been on.  I think relating it to Penn State is a good analogy.  Knoxville is like State College, but a little bit bigger and with a downtown consisting of a couple of business.  UT is spread out like University Park, and has the brick building look - though I think University Park building exteriors are a little better maintained.  The inside of UT's buildings are nice, so I think in all there is nothing to complain about.

Another striking thought I had while walking around was the lack of Asians.

At UT I will be characterizing scintillating materials for neutron detectors, with applications in nuclear security, along with some modeling of these detectors.  A lot of measurements. 

There was a lot of information presented to me - I need time to sift through it all before I can make more sense of the project.

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