Discovering the Arts of Physics: How her arts education helped this physics major tackle quantum crystallography

I can’t say my current internship in crystallography is what I expected. I’ve done science internships before. Okay, well one science internship before, but given a job is like any other job, I don’t think I was too much of a blockhead in assuming that an internship is like any other internship. You’re the coffee gopher, a calculator, and a secretary all in one. I will answer your phones, clean your dishes, and organize your past reports while doing complex mathematical calculations, for you pleasure. I exist to serve. Tell me what you want and I will begin immediately.

It goes with very little saying (after all, I did use the above paragraph setting this up) that my current internship is not what I expected. Furthermore, I have used none of the skills that I have spent two very long, and difficult, years at Swarthmore cultivating. In fact, I could have done everything I’m doing now, after I graduated from the Milwaukee High School of the Arts (MHSA). In fact, I have achieved most of what I have achieved in this internship, due to my specialized education at my—arts—high school.

MHSA was strange for an urban high school in that it still had a dream. It was typical for an urban high school in that it had nowhere near the means to fulfill that dream. My creative writing department had the most up to date software, the best contacts, and the best (carpeted!) room in the school. However, the teachers were… busy. And exhausted. They certainly didn’t have time for a student who was getting an A, (and who was motivated… gasp!). In the end, I was given a computer, a whole lot of photo and formatting software, and told to cope.

I did more than cope, I became an expert at practically everything Adobe. I also became efficient at it, because most of the other students didn’t cope and someone had to publish the magazine and newspaper. Furthermore, someone had to get people to read it, and organize the teachers, students, and grant people to hand it out and/or dish out the money. What’s the best way to do both of those things? AUDACISOUS COLOR! And Fabulous Formatting. When you want attention, you dress to startle (not impress) the eye. You don’t have credibility, and can you earn that credibility as a high school student and/or publication? Ha! Dream on little children. Dream on. In the end, you get their attention in any way possible and then work on holding it. I evolved to become the schools biggest advocate for creative, not standard formatting, and went from suburban girl to green hair and rainbow tank tops. My new introduction?

“The name’s Jean. Rhymes with green.”

My usual reaction?

“I’ll remember that.”

Take that Ms. Suburban blond AP scholar! BAM! Turns out, while the above skills couldn’t pull me through Swarthmore physics single handedly, they are all I need for my current internship. Most of the data analysis I’m doing is in Adobe photoshop, and my mentor has the time but he’s foreign, so it’s our communication is limited. He also has no clue about data analysis. I’m one my own, with Adobe, and some new software. I have to take stuff, make it work, and make it exciting. Sound familiar? And this is after listening to the following speech by the director of the internship program.

“There are plenty of good experimentalists and theorists who never get the attention they deserve. What separates them from the famous physicists? Presentation and communication. You have got to get peoples attention… Now, can you all introduce yourselves when I call your name? It will probably take me awhile to remember all of your faces. Jean Dahlquist?”

I raise my hand. “Hi. If it helps, Jean rhymes with green.”

“I think I will remember you.”

Take that AP scholars! I may not have taken multivariable calculus junior year of high school, but I took creative writing and hung out with punks and Goths. If you don’t believe in the resulting benefits of that, just watch. You’ll see. Physics is art. Realize that and catch up. BAM y’all.

THE POST POST:
This really brings up a lot of things. Students learn from struggle, and from being given independence, but when do you give too much? And when you give too little, how do you convince parents to let go?

How do you justify letting someone fail? Can you justify it?

And as far as the struggle comment goes, this essay is really comparing character/people lessons, to actual lessons on actual facts. Do students really have to choose one?

Some things to thing about...