To:	All first-year graduate students
From:	M. Oreglia, RI-271, coordinator for Research Experience Project
	oreglia@hep.uchicago.edu, 2-7446
Date:	September 9, 2003

First-year graduate students have two options for completing the experimental requirement:

	(A) The Advanced Laboratory Course, Physics 334, given Winter Quarter
	of 2003 and to be completed in that quarter, or

	(B) A Research Experience Project, Physics 335, for which you should
	begin making plans immediately and which must be completed by the
	end of Spring Quarter.

For all students who matriculated this September one or the other of
these options must be completed by the end of Spring Quarter.

If you wish to satisfy the experimental requirement (B) through a Research
Experience Project, you must find a suitable supervisor (see the attached list)
and agree upon a suitable project.  You must then write a short description
of the project (a paragraph or two will be sufficient), describing what (if
any) equipment you would build, what data you would take, and how it would be
analyzed.  The project should be self-contained, i.e., not simply an extension
of your work as a research assistant.

The supervisor must sign the bottom of this description, which
should be returned to me NO LATER THAN NOVEMBER 1.  This is so that,
in consultation with the Teaching Activities Committee and the Instructors
for Physics 334, I can decide whether this project would satisfy the
requirement.  If, after further discussion, the project is found not to
involve sufficient experimental training (for example, data analysis alone
will not be approved), you will be urged instead to sign up for option (A).

If your choice of option (B) is approved, you will have to:

	(1) Attend an organizational meeting in mid-November at which you
will describe your proposed project (5-minute talks);

	(2) Attend a similar meeting in the middle of Winter Quarter, where
you will report briefly upon progress on your project;

	(3) Register for Physics 335 for Spring Quarter if your supervisor
and I agree at the end of Winter Quarter that your progress is satisfactory;

	(4) Present a further short report on progress at a meeting
early in May;

	(5) Write a final report, due at the end of Spring Quarter;

	(6) Present your results in a poster session, to be followed by
a dinner for faculty and first year graduate students.

Supervisors will be expected to attend the meetings in (1), (2), and (4).
No grades of ``I'' will be assigned for Physics 335.

You should immediately start to look for a research supervisor and discuss
projects so as to meet the November 1 deadline.  If you need help in deciding
upon a possible ``match'' with a supervisor, please let me know.