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Re: Physics Internships/co-ops



This is a response to the question about internship or co-op
programs. I am pleased to have an opportunity to describe a program we
have started. Any feedback you have about it is welcome. Also, if you know
of promising students who might be interested in it, please have them
contact us.
The Department of Physics at Texas Tech University (TTU) is now in
the third year of our internship program, which leads to an MS IN APPLIED
PHYSICS with a specialization in semiconductor physics and technology. The
interships are taken in the semiconductor industry. In addition to
increasing our graduate enrollment and MS degree production, when we
started this program, an objective was to develop a national prototype for
physics department-based internship programs. We decided to concentrate on
semiconductors and the semiconductor industry because semiconductor
research is an area of emphasis in this department. Six of our 18 faculty
do research in this area and several of us had industrial research
contacts which we utilized to help to obtain industrial internship support
for this program. I feel that this type of program could also be
successful with other industries, but a key component is faculty expertise
and industrial contacts in the area of emphasis.
This program is an option to our long existing Applied Physics MS
Program. Because it is a new option to an old program, rather than a new
degree program, it could be started without the bureaucratic hassles
associated with starting new degree program. It also helps that our
administration is very supportive of our efforts along these lines. This
included faculty release time from teaching to get the program started and
the commitment of financial resources as matching funds for our external
support.
A principal component of this program is two, regular semester,
sponsored internships taken at semiconductor companies. We weave these
together with courses at TTU which are designed to enhance physics
knowledge and to focus on semiconductors. I emphasize that most of
the courses taken are not the traditional MS in physics "core courses".
Several of these courses were newly designed specifically for this
program. Some courses are taken in the Electrical Engineering
department, but most are taken in the Physics department. Students in this
program finish the MS in two years (or two years plus one summer). We
teach some of the courses in the summers.
So far, this program has been very successful! Our internships are
sponsored by Intel (Albuquerque), Cypress (Austin), Motorola (Austin), and
Texas Instruments (Dallas and Houston). Internship projects have ranged
from failure analysis to infrared materials characterization. Starting in the
summer of 1997, we received an NSF grant to fund this program at $478,000
for three years. This funding is used mainly to support the students while
they are at TTU; the companies support them (at quite nice salaries!)
while they are on internship. This means that our limited number of
Teaching Assistantships can be used for much needed support of students in
our other MS and PhD programs. Thus, this program does not compete with
our other programs for student support.
A key to the success of this program is the recruitment of
excellent students. We find that the students who are attracted to this
program are often people who have very good undergraduate records, but
also, for various reasons, have no desire to go to graduate school (at
least not in a traditional physics program). That is, these are people who
probably would be "lost" to the physics profession if they did enroll in
our program. Thus, this program does not compete with our other programs
for student enrollment. So far, 10 students have graduated from this
program and we have about 15 "in the pipeline". Due to the restrictions
placed by the companies on the type of person they will hire as an intern,
this program is restricted to US citizens or permanent residents only.
Please contact us with your impressions of this program. We are
especially interested in hearing from you if you can give us input
for improvement, help us to contact excellent students, help us to
obtain donated equipment, and or help us to find sources for student
support. If you have input, please contact me or directly contact Mark W.
Holtz, Associate Professor (email: g9mwh@ttacs.ttu.edu), or Roger L.
Lichti, Professor (email: xbrll@ttacs.ttu.edu), who are co-Directors of
this program.

Thanks.

Charley Myles
__________________________________________________________________________

Charles W. Myles, Ph.D. Phone: (806) 742-3768
Professor Department Phone: (806) 742-3767
Department of Physics Department FAX: (806) 742-1182
Mail Stop 1051 Email: cmyles@gordian.phys.ttu.edu
Texas Tech University or t9cwm@ttacs.ttu.edu
Lubbock, Texas 79409-1051 Department Homepage: www.phys.ttu.edu
Texas Tech Homepage: www.texastech.edu