Finding Your Niche

 My name is Nassim and I am a master's student at Columbia. My journey here was not straightforward, but I might have finally found my niche! 

While sitting in my dermatologist's chair years ago, I noticed a peculiar thing about his medical equipment. I peered through green goggles to protect my eyes from a 532 nm laser beam- very familiar equipment. I told him that these were the same tools I used in my quantum optics research at Caltech, and he suggested a career path I had never heard of medical physics.

I initially came to Caltech to study bioengineering before I was swept away by the allure of physics. In my freshman year during the pandemic, I designed incubators out of household supplies to study cell growth and built a spectrophotometer on my dining table. I wrote code to do genetic sequencing on bacteria from kombucha that I brewed in my kitchen. These scrappy projects reminded me of my tinkering as a teenager.

As a high schooler, I focused my passion on working on small-scale projects with my friends, such as building autonomous aircraft for potential wildfire surveillance. I was obsessed with drawing inspiration from Instructables, spending my weekend sorting through parts at Radioshack, and 3D printing art. Learning how to build things with limited resources is very similar to the sudden and overwhelming waves of math and physics at Caltech. Even during a pandemic, we could find a way to build and learn from home.

But there is a limit to how much you can do on your own, and finding supportive mentors is the key to success. All of my research experience during undergrad was from cold emailing professors whose work interested me. I made an effort to familiarize myself with new fields and take chances.

But I also became very familiar with rejection and ghosting. Before I learned about medical physics, I was rejected from 13 schools and countless jobs. I am glad that I kept an open mind and explored many options in physics. I am grateful I persisted because I have found a field that aligns with my values at the deepest level. I love that medical physics technology can be used to create compassionate care. Did you know that some hospitals house linear accelerators? Medical specialists can accelerate high-energy beams of X-rays and use them to target tumors deep in the body. This can be a great alternative to surgery in some cases. It is beautiful that fundamental principles in physics can be used to create procedures that not only save lives but make treatment more comfortable

I encourage you to learn more about this incredible field if you have a passion for solving problems in STEM and the medical field, but can't seem to decide- just as I was at one point.

Written by: Nassim Tavakoli (Masters-Columbia University)