Physics and astronomy students have stellar opportunities to grow professionally and explore their passions at Whittier College.
Star Parties
Amanda Edwards and her classmates piled into an old-fashioned school bus with their tents, sleeping bags, flashlights, guitars, and s’more ingredients for an out-of-this-world opportunity—literally.
For Whittier College students, the cosmos are in full view at Joshua Tree National Park, where professor Glenn Piner leads stargazing parties each semester. When they’re not roasting marshmallows around the campfire, Poets gaze through high-magnification telescopes to see such inspiring sights as the lines in Jupiter, or the craters of the moon.
Robotics Course
Robots are becoming an increasingly important part of our lives, from drones to the fleet of robots that help Amazon’s warehouses run smoothly. In Professor Serkan Zorba’s robotics course, students can lay a solid foundation in this fast-emerging field.
The project-centered course introduces them to Arduino hardware and relevant software, which they can use to make simple robots and other electronics, from drones to digital pianos. In addition to working with Arduino, students get hands-on experience with a fully customizable two-wheel balancing robot.
Aerospace Internships
Studying atomic physics was not out of Michael Huang’s reach as an undergraduate, thanks to an internship at Aerospace Corporation.
Michael completed a paid internship at Aerospace, which operates a federally funded research and development center for the United States Air Force. The internships gave him the opportunity to expand his skills in a real-world company, as well as work alongside scientists and engineers on projects that impact U.S. national security and space programs.
Primarily, Whittier students have been involved in atomic physics research in Aerospace's Physical Sciences Laboratories aimed at current and next-generation atomic clocks for space.
