Teaching
Teaching forms a core part of how I connect with physics. During my PhD, I was an instructor and a teaching assistant for a variety of physics courses in the core undergraduate curriculum, spanning Classical Mechanics, Electromagnetism, Special Relativity, Vibrations & Waves, Quantum Mechanics and Statistical Physics & Thermodynamics. I absolutely loved teaching in the classroom!
The Physics Department at Caltech, in addition to my classroom teaching role, also appointed me as Physics Teaching Fellow for the 2019-2020 academic year. My focus as Teaching Fellow was to serve as a resource for TAs, working with them at the grass-root level to evolve and better integrate the existing teaching setup.
On this page, I talk about my teaching experience in detail. Feel free to also look through other facets of my teaching, linked here:
Teaching Experience at Caltech
During my time as a graduate student at Caltech, I got a unique opportunity to engage in teaching at various different levels with a wide variety of instructional roles. I have served as a recitation instructor, head TA, Teaching Fellow, and a grading TA. The recitation structure at Caltech is very unique — unlike many other schools, where recitations only involve doing practice problems or discussing the homework, here at Caltech, you can get the chance to actually engage and be instrumental in full "lecture-style" classes. Below is a list of the various classes I was a part of, their descriptions, and the instructional roles I was engaged in:
Ph1 Sequence on Classical Mechanics and Electromagnetism
As a section instructor, I engaged in two/three recitations per week (two for Ph1a, three for Ph1b and Ph1c), one/two of which was a lecture-style recitation where I discussed the material and solved relevant examples in class. The other recitation in the week was a special "flipped section" where the students would break into small groups to work on a set of interesting and challenging problems, aided by informal interaction and brainstorming with me, to encourage collaboration, discussion, and the ability to think outside the box.
Ph-1a is a required freshmen class for all majors, covering the basics of Newtonian mechanics, spanning kinematics, Newton's Laws, gravity, circular motion, energy-momentum, rotational motion, orbital dynamics, and fluid mechanics. I taught this class during the Fall of 2016.
Text: The Mechanical Universe: Mechanics and Heat, by Frautschi et al.
Ph1-b (Practical Track) is a freshmen level course for most non-physics majors, covering the basics of electricity, magnetism, and their practical application. Topics covered include electric fields and potential, Gauss' law, Ohm's law, circuits and components, and magnetic fields and forces. I taught this class during the Winter terms of of 2016 and 2017.
Text: Physics for Scientists and Engineers, Vol. 2 by Serway & Jewett
Ph1-c (Practical Track) is a freshmen level course for most non-physics majors, covering the basics of electromagnetism, and special relativity. Topics covered include magnetic materials, Faraday's laws, induction, AC circuits, EM waves, interference, special relativity (time dilation, length contraction, simultaneity), and the Hall effect. I taught this class during the Spring term of 2017.
Text: Physics for Scientists and Engineers, Vol. 2 by Serway & Jewett
Ph2 Sequence on Waves, Quantum Mechanics, and Statistical Physics
As a section instructor, I engaged in two recitations per week, which were lecture-style classes where I discussed the material in detail, solved relevant examples in class, and went on interesting tangents and applications. For Ph-2a and Ph-2b, I also served as the head TA, managing course logistics and making sure course ran smoothly by being a point of contact between students, instructors, and the TAs.
Ph-2a is a sophomore/junior level course for most non-physics majors, covering the basics of oscillatory systems, and their practical applications. Topics covered include simple harmonic motion, damped/forced and coupled oscillations, wave propagation, normal modes, Fourier decomposition, standing waves, interference, polarization, and dispersion. The 2019 version we taught is now available as an online class for public consumption at http://www.waves.caltech.edu .
I taught this class for the Fall terms of 2017, 2018 and 2019.
Text: Vibrations and Waves, by George King
Ph-2b is a sophomore/junior level course for most non-physics majors, covering the basics of quantum mechanics, and some practical applications. Topics covered included the Schrödinger equation and its solutions in 1D potentials, Born rule, Hilbert space, bra-ket notation, spin systems, hydrogen atom, angular momentum, and basics of quantum statistical physics. I taught this class during the Winter terms of 2018 and 2020.
Text: Introduction to Quantum Mechanics, by David Griffiths
Ph-2c is a sophomore/junior level course for most non-physics majors, covering the basics of ensembles and statistical systems, thermodynamic laws, applications in energy technology and other areas. I taught this class during the Spring term of 2018.
Text: Thermal Physics, by Kittel & Kroemer
Other Classes
I was a grading TA, during Fall 2015, grading homework and exam problems for this class, which is a sophomore/junior level class, the equivalent of Ph-2a for physics majors.
Text: The Physics of Waves, by Howard Georgi
Ph-125c is a "topics" class in quantum mechanics targeted at senior undergrads majoring in physics, and graduate students. Topics covered included entanglement, EPR, density matrices, measurements, quantum channels, decoherence, interpretations of quantum mechanics, introduction to quantum computing and quantum field theory. I was a TA for this class during the spring of 2017.
Text: Professor's lecture notes, and assortment of textbooks for references