In the last one, I broke out the 3D printer and winged it with making an optics setup without the expensive alignement tables. I got a pretty awesome start to it but had to take a break before the laser was actually focused to a point.

You can find that one here: Lab Log #7

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I was super hyped about the 3D printing part of this project so I got sucked into prototyping for a while. Whether this was the most effective thing to work on or not is debatable but oh well.

I tried a bunch of different prints.

Some worked and some didn’t.

The issue that led to the most re-prints was that I had a hard time getting a confident understanding of the dimensions of my pieces.

The spec sheets and google searches I explored DID give me dimensions to work with...

...the diameter of the laser diode module is 6 mm,

the diameter of the CAY46-A collimating lens is 7.4 mm,

the flat to flat width of each M6 nut is 10 mm.

But when 3D printing slots for items, I needed to make sure I added a “tolerance”. This means that I needed to make the pockets a little bit bigger than the spec sheet measurements to account for the uncertainty values in 3D printing.

If I use exact values (no tolerance) or a tolerance that’s too small (less than the printing uncertainty), it’s pretty likely that the pockets won’t let my laser diode module, M6 nuts, or CAY and CAX lenses in. This is because the limited accuracy of the printer might result in an overshot when outlining the circles and create something smaller than I expect.

Prints also have a tendency to shrink or even bend once they cool down unless I plan my layer heights and filler carefully.

With all these factors inducing uncertainty to my prints, my laziness overcame my bias for analysis and I just started guessing.

I got a proper snug (but not too tight) fit after just a few tries.

Here’s what the loop looked like:

• Made an educated guess for what dimensions to use in Onshape

• Printed a test piece in about 20 minutes and let it cool

• Tried placing my components in it

• Increased or decreased tolerances depending on whether the pockets were too tight or too loose

Here’s where the real challenges started.

I took this same rapid iteration mentality into laser alignment.

I tried throwing the pieces together to see what would happen.

This is a move I still stand by because I had finally gotten all the pieces. I might as well have seen what they looked like together right away.

My mistake was staying in that mindset for a task that probably required a bit of calculation and some more understanding of the lenses after the first couple failed attempts.

I’ll share the work flow I was in anyways:

• Locked the laser diode module, collimating lens, and focusing lens in place in the V1 tower

• Powered on the laser to see what the output looked like

• Realized it was diverging like crazy

• Changed distances and orientations to try fixing

• Removed the focusing lens to simplify

• Removed laser and collimating lens from tower to try adjusting by hand while it was powered on

• Thought I saw something with collimation and printed a new setup to check it with less distance between laser and lens

• Saw divergence again

• Gave up for a day

• Realized the next morning that the diode module has collimating built into it already.

To be fair, I looked like a mad scientist in my laser protection glasses and the wasted time might have been worth the cinema of it all.

But MAN.

It was ALREADY collimated!

I was so tunnel visioned into messing with the setup I made that it totally slipped my mind that the laser is already collimated.

Oops.

But this is one of the better issues to have in lab. I’d much rather realize my problem is already solved than to run into another brick wall with no ideas for what to do next.

Fortunately, the tower is still really useful and I get to move on to focusing the beam now. I’ll then hopefully have more time than I expected to start on the photodetector. I’m trying to get both of these to work before the diamond finishes shipping. So far the lead time for it has been like 2 weeks so I’m glad I bought it from e6 when I did. I think they make-to-order their CVD diamonds which would make it take a while to get.

Thanking my past self for knowing that.

Anyways, next up I’ll probably try to measure a signal from one of my recently-delivered photodiodes when I put it in really obvious “light” and “dark” environments to get some practice in. I’ve only ever used a basic one in a lab class 2 years ago. Once.

Thanks for reading through. Morning coffee carries me on days that I don’t feel like going into a 1v1 with quantum tech. If you wanna help me with that, I’ll name whatever the coffee helps me build after you!

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I’m having a lot of fun sharing this project with you all. It’s at a point where I’m quite proud of the lab log portfolio. If you like talking and reading about science and engineering from scratch, I’m here to talk about quantum computing and at-home labs.

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Welcome to Lab Log #7.

In the last one I upgraded the laser setup by moving the diode module over to a laser driver circuit board and writing some Arduino code to verify the setup and eventually I got it to operate at around 10 microsecond pulse widths.

You can find that one here: Lab Log #6

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Now that I have a functional laser, I’m moving on to 3D printing a tower to house it.

Ultimately, my goal is to build a stable structure that lines the laser output up with a couple lenses, filters, and eventually the diamond sample.

The first idea that popped into my head was to use some M6 nuts and bolts I happened to already have from building apartment furniture. I figured a square with four legs and a central pocketed hole would create the setup I want.

It’s taking a bunch of iterations just to get the first functional piece but the 3D printing makes that okay because it’s so fast. Every 20 minutes or so I get to physically test the dimensions I’m using in Onshape until I get that satisfying fit.

Here’s what the first prototype for the laser holder looks like:

Moving on to the lens holders.

These are a little tougher because I need to be careful about how I handle the lenses. I want to store them in a pocket on their own blocks that slide onto the four-rail bolt system I set up for the laser, but they are kinda tiny.

I’m using tweezers to handle them because I don’t want to get finger oil on them or risk dust accumulation from static charge off my hands. Each lens has its own dimensions too so I need to make a couple designs that have the same overall shape but different pocket sizes.

Here’s what I came up with after a few trials:

Now I can line everything up and shine the laser through all the pieces! I think I have the collimation working. But I’m not completely sure how to get it to focus. I’m either pointing light through the wrong side of one of the lenses or there is a specific distance that I need to consider for collimation and focusing.

With that to worry about, my photodiodes are sitting idle and my frequency synthesizer just arrived. I need to order the light filters for the photodetector setup and I need additional components for the microwave stuff. It’s also worth mentioning that I’ve been so occupied with getting the physical setup built that I’m a little behind on the physics angle of all this. I need to study up on how light interacts with lenses and how microwaves change energy with frequency in order to hit the exact amount an electron needs to jump between it’s ground and +- 1 spin states.

Thanks for reading through. Morning coffee carries me on days that I don’t feel like going into a 1v1 with quantum tech. If you wanna help me with that, I’ll name a part of this lab after you!

Buy me a coffee!

I’m having a lot of fun sharing this project with you all. It’s getting to a point where I’m quite proud of the lab log portfolio. If you like talking and reading about science and engineering from scratch, I’m here to talk about quantum computing and at-home labs.

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2026-8-19 8:04 AM - I control lasers.

Welcome to Lab Log #6.

In the last Log, I built some circuits and tried powering on the laser just to see what would happen. I ended up getting a little bit of light and a little bit of control. The downsides were that the light was too dim and the signals going into the laser were too bizarre to confidently move forward with micro-second pulse widths. This time around, it’s quite different.

You can find that one here: Lab Log #5

We’re starting to see some notable progress.

I’ve managed to power the laser diode package with a laser driver circuit board and control the laser pulses with the Arduino.

I was able to make several measurements with my oscilloscope to verify that my Arduino code was behaving the way I expected it to.

Here’s the test sequence I’m using:

When I tried measuring what the output of the laser driver was, I got a little stumped on the consistent patterning in between each high pulse.

Here’s what that looks like:

I learned that this might not matter because the laser driver pulses the laser diode package by feeding and cutting current from it. Since I’m measuring voltage, maybe I’m getting some sort of residual ringing that has the same pattern every time as part of my scope reading but not as part of the final laser behavior.

To check this, I rewatched a video I took of the laser in operation and saw it turn off completely in between its pulses at full power. I didn’t see any shuttering matching what I might expect from the scope reading.

I’ll look into this a little more but I’m pretty happy with where I’m at. Next I simply want to attempt higher frequencies and decide if I need to change my code or upgrade the Arduino in order to unlock operation in microsecond pulses.

I’m also starting to look into materials for the photodetector portion of the setup.

I think a great next step would be to operate the laser in the low-microsecond range and read it out with a plot generated by signals from a photodiode circuit that I place right next to the output of the laser. This would put me in a great spot to start thinking about reading fluorescence off of a diamond sample.

Extra note: Adding this in late just cause. I will be 3D printing soon because I also want to align the laser with a collimating lens and a focusing lens. Should be pretty sick.

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I’m having a lot of fun sharing this project with you all. It’s getting to a point where I’m quite proud of the lab log portfolio. If you like talking and reading about science and engineering from scratch, I’m here to talk about quantum computing and at-home labs.

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Welcome to Lab Log #5

In the last Log, I bought some circuit components and took an honest look at my abilities. I may have a comprehensive physics degree, but my hands-on skills need some work before I can physically implement the stuff I learned.

You can find that one here: Lab Log #4

It’s late at night and I have work tomorrow morning but I need a little more time because I sorta got something to work.

By the way, all my tools have arrived and I’ve set them up like this:

Lately, I’ve been trying to copy these circuits from the Appendix of the Mariani paper and have had varying degrees of success.

I made a regulated power supply with a barrel jack connector and a voltage regulator and I fed it into a laser diode package that I ordered.

I tried making this calibration circuit that keeps the supply stable by comparing it to a reference voltage but never really got it hooked up. I got confused by why this part needed a potentiometer and while I was able to get one connected, I never found a use for it.

But the laser package does turn on! Light at last!

I wanted to try toggling it. So I soldered a MOSFET onto this SOT23-6 adapter piece that connects surface-mount components to breadboards.

Not sure if this was the best move, but I used the output of pin 9 on the Arduino Uno to open and close the MOSFET, using it as a gate to let current through from the power supply circuit to the laser diode package.

This actually got the laser toggling after I uploaded some code to the Arduino, but there is this weird hook pattern in my circuit waveforms and it looks like the supply tries going through a soft-start every time I modulate the laser which prevents it from getting to full power.

I’m left with a feeling of mild success without too much satisfaction because on the one hand, I made SOMETHING. On the other, it’s kinda trash and I don’t think that it’ll hit nano-second levels of control as-is.

I’ve been grappling with something that may or may not stem from ego. It’s that I had this idea in my head that I want to build this NV center at home from the ground up as much as possible. The point of this is to feel confident in the field of quantum computing and to have built up competent lab work as a skill by the time I finish because I deliberately made the project challenging. But I fear I’ve gone too far in that direction. Just because I want to learn as much as I can about analog electronics while I do this, doesn’t mean I should force it and delay the ultimate goal of seeing Rabi oscillations. And it looks like making these circuits from scratch as described in the Mariani paper won’t do me much good in the long run since I’m not working with custom PCBs like they did.

So I wanna try another solution. Part of me calls it a short-cut, the other part of me calls it moving forward.

I’m gonna order a laser driver circuit board and see if I can replace this prototype setup with a more professional product specifically designed for the task. It’s cheap too so I don’t see a reason not to try it. If it’s better than what I made, I’m moving forward with it.

If not... back to the drawing board I guess.

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I’m having a lot of fun sharing this project with you all. It’s actually becoming a way for me to keep track of what’s happened for myself. If you like talking and reading about science and engineering from scratch, I’m here to talk about quantum computing.

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Welcome to Lab Log #4

I’ve practiced electronics! I even recently spent a month taking an electronics troubleshooting course at a community college through the up-skilling program at my job. It was a good experience because it forced me to put my ego aside and just learn electronics from the bottom up again.

The heaps of quantum mechanics, quantum computing, and particle physics courses I took in college taught me a ton, but they didn’t teach me that connecting a BJT backwards creates a less than appealing burn smell.

The class I just took gave me some confidence with hooking up circuits and connecting them to power supplies. It gave me a little more intuition as to what actually happens when I mess up badly and how to work with this stuff safely.

Now that I have a foundation, I want to build the laser. I remember ordering and testing laser diode cans when I was in school for a research project shortly before graduating. I never quite finished that one but the experience has some use now, because the first thing I’m looking for as I build my own laser setup is laser diode cans.

I’m gonna move forward with these because they are pretty close to my target wavelength of 520 nm. I found them on Ebay.

Something I know is that these components are extremely fragile. If I want to handle them regularly without worrying about shocking them, I need to have an ESD mat on my workbench.

ESD stands for electrostatic discharge and the mat is supposed to keep me grounded which prevents the electrostatic buildup that makes the static shock possible.

I’m just gonna go with this one from amazon.

Now that I’m a little more equipped, I’m looking forward to making some circuits from the Appendix of a research paper I’m following and trying to measure them on my own setup.

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I’m having a lot of fun sharing this project with you all. It’s actually becoming a way for me to keep track of what’s happened for myself. If you like talking and reading about science and engineering from scratch, I’m here to talk about quantum computing.

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2026-8-05 8:32 PM - Ditched optimization to take action

Welcome to Lab Log #3

In Lab Log #2, I picked out a few research papers to treat like guides. I ended up being less concerned with building a big library of sources, and more concerned with making the project tangible. I figured that I’d only be procrastinating in the comfort of theory if I don’t get hands-on with this stuff soon.

You can find that one here: Quantum at Home - Lab Log #2

Using a Sense of Urgency to Get Going

So, I’ve read a few research papers and settled on a rough idea for how to make a qubit at home. Pulsed Optically Detected Magnetic Resonance (ODMR) with NV Centers.

But I have NOTHING right now.

If this project is gonna go anywhere, I need to be building circuits, thoroughly studying up on NV center physics, sourcing the correct parts, and putting it all together so I can see what’s broken early on and fix it.

And this needs to happen soon because I know myself. I have a nasty habit of starting really ambitious things and making a ton of progress, only to find something else that seems better later and move on.

If I’m not physically building this setup before “later” happens, I fear my mind will drop it entirely.

Honestly, action is everything right now so it’s time put the papers down for a sec and go shopping.

I need an oscilloscope, a multimeter, some breadboards, capacitors, a barrel jack connector, an AC-DC adapter, an Arduino Uno...

… a photodiode, a pack of resistors, laser diodes…

…a diamond?

Man.

Getting What I Need: Parts and Tools

Starting with the multi-meter. I’ve worked at Fluke, I trust Fluke, I’m gonna get their multi-meter and not think too much about it. $100? Done.

I’ve seen breadboards and analog circuit components before, I’ll just order these white breadboards and some sets of resistors, capacitors, voltage regulators, and rectifier diodes. I don’t think that careful planning is too important for these because they’re mostly for helping me learn electronics and enabling me to get some basic prototyping done. I’m picking the specific values based on what I see in the bill of materials on the Mariani paper so I can follow along with them.

As I was thinking about the oscilloscope, my initial reaction was to quickly find an affordable one that seemed decent and just buy it.

But I’m actually glad I slowed down in this case. The bandwidth of the oscilloscope is an extremely important number. It expresses what frequencies the scope can see. And unless I get something close to 100 Mhz, I won’t be able to see the nano-second scale spacing between some of the pulse patterns I plan to use. Most of it is in the micro-second range but it’s good to have a bandwidth 5x larger than the highest frequency element I plan to measure so I can view it with only roughly a 2% error.

I followed these Tektronix guides to pick a scope and make the purchase. I went with a Siglent.

Tektronix Oscilloscope Purchase Guide

Tektronix Explaining Bandwidth

Lack of access to these tools was a massive wall standing in between me and bringing this at-home lab to life, so I see this investment as an essential step.

I’m super excited get going with all these items. I want to try to make some circuits and measure them.

I may have graduated from a physics program but I gotta be honest…

I don’t really know much about electronics yet and my shopping cart just launched me into the deep end.

I’m having a lot of fun sharing this project with you all. It’s actually becoming a way for me to keep track of what’s happened for myself. If you like talking and reading about science and engineering from scratch, I’m here to talk about quantum computing.

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2026-8-04 12:27 PM - Found guiding research papers

Welcome to Lab Log 2.

In the last Log, I documented some of my motives and reasoned towards a qubit methodology I can realistically build solo, from my apartment, with a limited budget.

Started a Small Literature Review

Now, I’ve found some research papers to use and they’re pretty exciting!

I’ve been worried about the costs and whether the execution of an NV center experiment is reasonable or even possible for me.

But these papers reassure me because their experiments appear to have been designed with accessibility in mind.

Here are a couple which detail cost effective experimental setups:

• A home-made portable device based on Arduino Uno for pulsed magnetic resonance of NV centers in diamond

  • G. Mariani; A. Umemoto; S. Nomura

• Modular low-cost 3D printed setup for experiments with NV centers in diamond

  • Jan Stegermann et al

I’ll be moving forward with the Mariani paper as a central guide because it seems like it really attempts to control the states of NV centers while the Stegermann paper focuses more on being a demonstration/teaching lab.

The Mariani paper takes a rigorous, from-scratch approach because they designed and built every single analog circuit for the pulsed laser, the pulsed microwave generator, and the photodetector. I may try to follow this exactly but I expect that I’m going to have to improvise a lot. An issue that I see happening down the road is being unable to collect enough photons from the output of the diamond sample to read anything.

I was lucky enough to find this paper which focused on optimizing microwave pulses to get clearer optical output when driving the states. This one might be a go-to reference for me later if I have issues with readout or if I simply want to improve my fluorescence measurements.

• Optimal control of a nitrogen-vacancy spin ensemble in diamond for sensing in the pulsed domain

  • Andreas F.L. Poulsen; Joshua D. Clement, James L. Webb; Rasmussen H. Jensen; Luca Troise; Kirstine Berg-Sørensen; Alexander Huck; Ulrik Lund Anderson

This is interesting to me because it looks like they simply use math to make experiments better which fits my exact ideals and needs (although they start with $15,000 lasers which might be an issue). Apparently these custom microwave pulses are built from analyzing a diamond sample and implementing “smooth optimal control” involving something called Floquet theory.

So I grabbed this paper to help me learn the math behind this method of “smooth optimal control”

• Smooth optimal control with Floquet theory

  • Björn Bartels; Florian Mintert

I need to take a deeper dive into all of it, but I’m really excited about this little selection of papers. For now, I’ll let these sources sorta serve as a central guide knowing that I can add to my library later.

Is This Enough?

Do I have enough research papers to start?

I know that when people do research projects for school or write research papers to publish in journals, they do quite an extensive literature review. This often involves a couple dozen sources. I have maybe four?

Here’s why:

I’m honestly more interested in taking action than anything. It feels like this whole thing can easily fall flat if I’m not building physical components soon. So I think I’ll move forward with these so I can start trying to order materials and tools to get a real start. But I’ll keep an open mind and add more papers later.

I’m also excited to get some lab gear based on what these papers say and work with it.

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This post is a throwback story to something I did in the middle of undergrad that inspired me to keep moving forward with quantum computing and I hope it does the same for you.

Winter is keeping Seattle frigid. But it’s not cold enough to snow.

Rain turns to slush instead.

In sync with the heavy pattering on my living room window, my keyboard translates thought to text in a Jupyter notebook.

When will my program finally work?

A criminally under-read Medium article caught my eye a few days ago and since I’m procrastinating on my weekly homework, I have plenty of time to sink into one of my most technical personal projects of the year.

The article talks about using quantum probability image encoding (QPIE) for image processing (written by an MIT student as a homework assignment or something).

Here’s the article: https://medium.com/mit-6-s089-intro-to-quantum-computing/quantum-image-processing-quantum-probability-image-encoding-qpie-and-quantum-hadamard-edge-df7bd3dc7f8

Here I am, diving into their homework right along with them. I’m only 2 years late!

Quantum probability image encoding sounds kinda complicated.

But it’s cool, so let’s break it down.

Quantum image processing is the practice of using quantum computing methods to read and operate on pictures. To make sense of this, we can first think about how greyscale images are stored on normal (classical) computers.

They are a grid of black and white pixels with intensity values describing how light or dark they are. These intensity values are assigned to each coordinate in the picture.

Quantum probability image encoding (QPIE) is one way that quantum computers can store this same information. Although, this has to be done differently from what we’re used to on classical computers because of how information works on quantum computers.

What is quantum computing and how DOES information work on them?

Quantum computing is a class of “unconventional computing” which is a term that refers to computers that follow unusual methods.

This particular type of unconventional computing tries to take advantage of the weird “quantum” behavior of particles and waves to create massively parallel computation methods which handle tasks that would be impossible for a normal computer with the same number of bits or even orders of magnitude more.

As of right now, quantum computing hosts extremely difficult ways to make calculations, but it becomes beneficial depending on how computationally complex the calculation is.

Computational complexity is a way to describe how efficiently problems requiring calculations can be solved in terms of the resources needed. Particularly time and memory storage. This is relevant here because image processing can be a very computationally complex task due to how much data is involved which causes dense matrix calculations. (It’s worth noting that matrix calculations are quite difficult in classical computing)

Superposition

An example of the weird quantum behavior that quantum computers use is superposition.

Superposition in quantum computing is the idea that a quantum bit, a qubit, can be multiple different values at the same time. Its “state” can be a superposition of these values, which are called basis states.

These quantum states can be encoded as combinations of the 0s and 1s that we are familiar with in classical computing where the basis state |0⟩ means that the qubit has a value of 0 and the basis state |1⟩ means the qubit has a value of 1.

Basis states represent the possible outcomes of a measurement on a quantum mechanical system and are mathematically treated as vectors that are orthogonal to each other and normal (have a length of 1). In other words, basis states are “orthonormal”. When we pick |0⟩ and |1⟩ as basis states, we are saying that whenever our measurement result is one thing, such as a spin state in a nitrogen vacancy center that emits a certain amount of light, we are talking about the state |0⟩, if our result is another thing like a different spin state, we are talking about |1⟩. So, for the purposes of making quantum computations using the binary bits in classical computers, the basis states |0⟩ and |1⟩ make up our chosen orthonormal basis, otherwise called the “computational basis” when we are talking about quantum computing.

In quantum mechanics problems, an orthonormal basis is often picked so we can work with basis states that are completely independent of each other (no chance for both to be measured at the same time) which simplifies calculations and is a criterion for physical observables, which is what we want in our computer, states that can actually be measured and differentiated.

But what does superposition look like written out?

Superposition can look like this on paper:

This state, psi, is defined as an equal superposition of the basis state |0⟩ and the basis state |1⟩. Both terms have a probability amplitude (their coefficient) which corresponds to a 50% chance of being measured.

If this were to describe a qubit, it would mean that its overall bit value is not just 0 or just 1. It’s a combination of the two. This particular state means that there is a 50% chance for the qubit to have a value of 0 and a 50% chance to have a value of 1 when it is measured.

Before measurement, the qubit is both 0 and 1. After measurement, it’s randomly one of them and stays that way until it is prepared again or noise decoheres it.

Entanglement

The other key feature of quantum computing is something called entanglement. This refers to the ability of one qubit to be linked to another qubit in that if information changes in one of them, the information of the other changes instantly as well. Unfortunately this does not unlock “faster than light” communication. I’m not using entanglement for this stage of my project so I’ll hold off on the technical details for now, but now you have a sense of a few main ideas.

This is just weird. How is it useful?

Since quantum bits can be a mixture of 0s and 1s, operations before measurement allow the computer to make multiple calculations at the same time, leading to exponential speed ups in calculations that scale exponentially with linear increases in input for certain algorithms.

QPIE leans into the nature of qubits and uses them to store image data. For black and white images, the states of the bits encode the location of the pixel in the image while those states’ probability amplitudes encode their pixel intensity.

The above image shows an example of this for a 2x2 image. Two qubits can be used to describe 4 squares because there are four possible measurement combinations. You can measure:

q1: 0 q2: 0 which is |00⟩

q1: 0 q2: 1. which is |01⟩

q1: 1 q2: 0 which is |10⟩

q1: 1 q2: 1 which is |11⟩

The coefficients a, b, c, and d are the probability amplitudes of the state they precede. If these were all 1/2, all the pixels would be encoded to have the same color. If a and b had values larger than c and d, they would be lighter in shade than c and d.

Me Trying to Apply All This

I’m using IBM Qiskit to play with all these ideas and I’m messing up quite a lot. Error after error after error. I’ve already had to step away like four times.

I really want to understand the concepts from this article and build up my own implementation of them with knowledge from my classes. So I’m trying to use one of IBM’s simulators to store and interact with the image as if it’s on a quantum computer.

I’ve prepared my own image using python in a classical way and I’m feeding it into my simulated quantum circuit as a quantum state. It’s just like the explanation I gave above but there are more qubits and therefore more states so I can represent larger images than just 2x2s.

The final step is to plot a histogram of many many measurements of the circuit to build up the probabilities (intensities) of each state (pixel location). This same data can then be used to rebuild the image with python.

The rain is letting up and the moon is shining through my window a little too directly, creating a glare on my screen.

And true to my cinematic re-imagination of this whole experience, I press enter one more time for it to finally work.

I’m amazed!

This is a classical piece of data (an image), translated into quantum computing language (a quantum state for QPIE), and displayed again by extracting its data from the measured simulated circuit (classical post-processing). I’m happy because this process has so many potential applications:

• Quantum/classical hybrid machine learning for computer vision

• Edge detection speed ups for large images

• Quantum circuit problems requiring creative state encoding and data extraction through built up probabilities

• Maybe we can pretend non-image data IS an image and use QPIE to operate on it?

As a disclaimer, since this is a simulation, it’s not actually demonstrating the perfect encoding and readout of a 32x32 image on quantum hardware. The physical implementation of this would be very challenging to pull off because of how rapidly gate noise and decoherence would corrupt the information in these quantum states. As far as I know, the bottleneck in this field as a whole is noise, which makes error correction a really interesting direction to take this project one day.

Takeaways

As I was doing this project, I was swept away by the novelty and difficulty of it. It was spontaneous and involved so many different things I had been thinking about for school and research. There was no real reward for it other than my own satisfaction and the hopes that I might apply the same knowledge again sometime later.

Fast forward a few months and I used it to stumble my way into a Quantum Hackathon win!

This sort of taught me that by default, chasing little bursts of motivation for your passions is never a waste of time. And sometimes, it can even result in something unexpected and great.

I’m excited to explore more of what quantum image processing has to offer.

Maybe this can become my niche or something.

Thanks for reading along with this devblog. My hope is to have taught you a couple interesting things and maybe even inspire you to start your own quantum circuit project. If you’re interested in reading or talking about student life and creative tech, I’m here.

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2026-08-01 10:06 AM - Picked a qubit methodology

Context

I got my Bachelor’s in Physics and after several months of getting work experience, I’m seriously missing the environment I was a part of in school.

I remember there were dozens of groups each taking a stab at their own niche topic within just one subject out of many. There were more clusters of well-funded labs than I ever had the time to explore and many of those spaces were quantum computing labs which were shared between the Physics and Electrical Engineering departments. I was part of an ion trapping group and spent my time 3-D printing trap frames, writing object tracking python scripts, and messing around with Arduinos to control plate-electrodes.

But ever since I lifted my diploma and moved from student life to work life, I haven’t been able to replicate that level of creative involvement.

In my boredom I eventually asked:

Is it possible to build a qubit at home?

Surely this is an absurd thought.

Quantum computing is one of the most complex, fundamentally confusing technologies of today.

The setups require hundreds of thousands of dollars in funding, the knowledge to run an experiment lives only in the heads of professors and PhD grads, and the hardware setup and software control is too difficult to even try in its own right.

Right…?

For the first time since Spring of 2025, my doubts and misconceptions evaporated and made way for day 1 of my at-home quantum lab.

Motive

I have a dream to found a quantum startup from PhD spin-out research. I have some schools in mind and I really want to go to them.

But they host competitive programs.

If I’m going to join this field and put myself out there for a chance to be a part of a great learning environment, I might as well go all in. It seems reasonable that if I aspire to succeed in quantum computing, I might benefit from building something real. From scratch. By myself.

Building something like an ensemble qubit maybe.

Fueled by the short-term dopamine rush of ambition and hope, I guess this is the beginning of my rebellion against idleness in my gap year. It’s my attempt to stand a little taller amidst a sea of undeniable applicants and carve myself a tangible foundation for my long term commitment to exploring science and tech.

How We Start

I need to pick a methodology first.

There are lots of different ways to make a qubit. Off the top of my head, there are photonic qubits, superconducting qubits, trapped ion qubits, topological qubits, and neutral atom qubits. (And more!)

I know right away that I want to avoid methods that require ultra-cold conditions and ultra-high vacuum chambers. I simply can’t fund or safely maintain either in my apartment with a few hundred dollars of “fun money” per month.

However, there is a room temp option that I heard of from class called NV centers in diamond. NV stands for Nitrogen Vacancy which, in this case, is a little pocket of space trapped in a diamond lattice.

All I know for now is that free electrons can exist in these little pockets, making them available for excitation by laser light and microwaves without the need for a bajillion-dollar fridge or an immitation of deep space sitting on my tiny work bench.

NV centers are well-researched because they have practical applications in quantum sensing and they show promising results in qubit control and coherence.

Next Steps

Moving forward, I want to see if I can find research papers that support this initial intuition and figure out which of them could be useful guides as I try to make some sort of qubit from scratch.

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A Bit of History

Since the dawn of time, humanity has tried to understand the structure and order of the cosmos. Many civilizations created their own cosmological systems, but the first serious attempt came from ancient Greece. The most successful model was the Geocentric model, which placed Earth at the center of an unchanging universe—a view later adopted by the Catholic Church during the Middle Ages. However, this model didn’t last forever: after the death of Galileo Galilei, it was replaced by the Heliocentric model, in which the Sun was placed at the center of the universe.

This new cosmological model was a true scientific revolution and led to new proposals that shaped our current understanding of the universe. Galileo’s observations during his lifetime proved two crucial things: that the universe could contain matter invisible to human eyes at the time, and that new technologies could reveal aspects of the cosmos that had previously gone unnoticed [1].

A major technological breakthrough came in 1687, when Isaac Newton published his treatise describing the laws of motion and universal gravitation. Astronomers were now able to determine the gravitational mass of astronomical sources by measuring their dynamic properties. This made it possible to study celestial objects that appeared invisible to observation. Consequently, many observed phenomena began to be explained using terms such as “dark masses,” “dark bodies,” and so on—all referring to celestial objects not directly observed but whose gravitational effects could be measured. Finally, Henri Poincaré coined the term dark matter to encompass them all [2].

The First Evidence for Dark Matter

Friedrich Bessel was possibly the first to predict the existence of an unseen astronomical body [3], whose gravitational influence altered the trajectories of the stars Sirius and Procyon. Since then, similar phenomena have been observed at different scales, all suggesting that some component of matter in the universe is missing.

At the galactic scale, the first evidence came from the observation of galaxy rotation curves—measurements that show how fast stars, gas, and dust orbit a galaxy as a function of their distance from its center (see Figure 1). To make these measurements, scientists repurposed military radars that had fallen out of use after World War II and developed new observation methods [3]. The most successful method involved studying the hydrogen emission line, as hydrogen is extremely abundant.

In 1978, Vera Rubin, Kent Ford, and Nicolas Thonnard published a paper presenting the first rotation curves for ten spiral galaxies [4]. Their results shocked the scientific community: the rotation curves were flat, meaning that the stars’ orbital speed did not decrease with distance from the center. This contradicted expectations—stars farther from the center should rotate more slowly. To explain this discrepancy, scientists proposed that galaxies were surrounded by halos of some substance interacting gravitationally with baryonic matter: dark matter.

At the galaxy cluster scale [b], it was observed that the total mass inferred from stellar and cluster dynamics was much larger than that derived from baryonic matter alone—another indication of missing mass. The first to notice this phenomenon in the 1930s were Fritz Zwicky (studying the Coma Cluster) [6] and Sinclair Smith (studying the Virgo Cluster) [7].

At even larger (cosmological) scales, the universe shows a highly complex structure made of long filaments separated by vast voids. Galaxies form clusters, which then form superclusters, all connected in a vast cosmic web (see Figure 2). These images come from computer simulations modeling the universe’s accelerated expansion since the Big Bang. In these simulations, the universe is treated as a fluid composed of various particle species—neutrinos, photons, etc.—initially in thermal equilibrium. As the universe expands, it cools, and many particles decouple from this thermal bath, ceasing to interact.

From these simulations, scientists deduced that dark matter must have been one of the first species to decouple from the thermal bath, forming the first dark matter halos. Later, baryonic matter was drawn into the gravitational wells of these halos, leading to the formation of galaxies, clusters, superclusters, and filaments. Without dark matter, the structures we observe today—such as galaxies and clusters—would still be forming, and the cosmic web would appear much less defined [9]. Thus, dark matter is essential for the formation of structure in the universe, including our Milky Way.

The Candidates

So, what exactly is dark matter? Based on observations and the ΛCDM cosmological model [c], currently the leading model of the universe, we can infer some of its key properties.

A dark matter particle must be:

1. Non-relativistic (cold) — it moves much slower than light, or else it would have escaped early halos and prevented structure formation.

2. Electrically neutral — it doesn’t interact with light, so it can’t be seen.

3. Non-baryonic — it’s not made of ordinary matter like protons or neutrons.

4. Weakly interacting — it interacts very little with normal matter, except through gravity.

Many candidates have been proposed. Early on, scientists suggested baryonic dark matter—objects called MACHOs(Massive Compact Halo Objects), such as primordial black holes or neutron stars. Others proposed modified gravity theories, such as MOND (Modified Newtonian Dynamics), which alters Newton’s second law at large distances. However, these models failed to explain all observations.

By the late 1980s, most scientists agreed that the majority of the universe’s mass consists of non-baryonic cold particles, and that dark matter must be a type of elementary particle. As the idea of non-baryonic dark matter gained traction, more exotic candidates emerged—most notably the WIMPs (Weakly Interacting Massive Particles) [10].

Dark Matter Today

Today, we believe that galaxies are surrounded by dark matter halos. The Milky Way should have one too, and at Earth’s location we should, in principle, be able to detect interactions between dark and baryonic matter. While we know dark matter interacts gravitationally, it’s still unclear whether it interacts via other forces (weak or strong).

This has led to three main search strategies [11]:

1. Direct detection:
   The goal is to detect a dark matter particle colliding with an atomic nucleus or electron, producing a measurable recoil or excitation. Examples include SuperCDMS, XENONnT (current experiments), and DARWIN (future experiment).

2. Indirect detection:
   Here, scientists look for the annihilation products of dark matter—particles produced when two dark matter particles annihilate each other. These could be gamma rays or neutrinos emitted from regions of high dark matter density, like the galactic center.
   Experiments include:

   • Water-based detectors (e.g., IceCube, ANTARES, KM3NeT) that detect neutrinos producing Cherenkov radiation.

   • Atmospheric detectors (e.g., CTA, VERITAS, HESS) that detect gamma rays generating Cherenkov light in the atmosphere.

3. Collider searches:
   At particle accelerators such as the LHC (CERN) and Fermilab, scientists try to produce dark matter by colliding baryons or leptons [d] at extremely high energies. These collisions create showers of particles, and dark matter would appear as missing energy—an invisible particle escaping the detector.

Conclusions

Each detection method has its strengths and weaknesses, but the main experimental challenge is distinguishing true dark matter signals from background noise—signals produced by known standard model particles. The galactic center, for example, is full of astrophysical phenomena that generate many types of signals. To detect dark matter there, we must first understand all other background sources extremely well.

As of October 2025, no definitive dark matter signal has been found. The nature of this elusive particle remains a mystery. However, enormous progress has been made—advances in technology and collaboration between theoretical and experimental scientists are bringing us closer every day to the moment of discovery.

Adria Kerr.

Vocabulary

[a] Baryonic matter. Matter composed of baryons. Baryons are subatomic particles made of three quarks (examples are protons and neutrons).

[b] Galaxy clusters. Groups of galaxies bound together by gravity and interacting with each other.

[c] ΛCDM model. The standard cosmological model describes an expanding universe dominated by an accelerated expansion and filled with cold dark matter.

[d] Baryons and leptons. Baryons (such as protons and neutrons) are made of three quarks, while leptons (like electrons, muons, and taus) are fundamental charged particles with corresponding antiparticles.

References

[1]:“History of dark matter” by Gianfranco Bertone and Dan Hooper [https://journals.aps.org/rmp/abstract/10.1103/RevModPhys.90.045002]

[2]: Henri Poincaré, L’Astronomie 158 (1906) (original) and “The Milky Way and the Theory of Gases” by Henri Poincare [https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1906PA…..14..475P/abstract]

[3]: Observation made by Friedrich W. Bessel in 1844. [https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article/6/11/136/964302]

[4]: “Extended rotation curves of high-luminosity spiral galaxies. IV. Systematic dynamical properties, Sa -> Sc.” por Vera Rubin, Kent Ford y Nicolas Thonnard. [https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/link_gateway/1978ApJ…225L.107R/doi:10.1086/182804].

[5]: A Barriego-Quintana et. al, Galaxy rotation favors prolate dark matter haloes, Phys. Rev. D 107, 083524 (2023) [https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.107.083524]

[6]: “On the Masses of Nebulae and of Clusters of Nebulae” by Fritz Zwicky [https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1937ApJ….86..217Z/abstract]

[7] “The Mass of the Virgo Cluster” by Sinclair Smith [https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1936ApJ….83…23S/abstract]

[8] “The large-scale structure of the Universe” by Volker Springel, Carlos S. Frenk and Simon D. M. White. [https://www.nature.com/articles/nature04805]

[9] Chapter 1 - “An introduction to Particle Dark Matter” by Stefano Profumo.

[10] “Cosmological constraints on the properties of weakly interactive massive particles” by Gary Steigman and Michael S. Turner.

[11] Chapters 3,4 and 5. “Particle Dark Matter” by Giafranco Bertone.

[im1] Image taken from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaxy_rotation_curve

[im2] Image taken from: https://www.eurekalert.org/multimedia/673854

[im3] Image taken from: https://www.eso.org/public/chile/news/eso1841/

[im4] Image taken from: https://www.csn.es/-/el-telescopio-de-los-poetas

It was hard to do much outside of my normal work this week.

Overcommitted days.

Two tutoring sessions before a full time shift as a calibration tech one day, overtime for an evening shift the next day, last-minute rescheduling of a math session the next…

After all of this it was difficult to have any energy for side projects or personal learning even though that’s what I really wanted to do.

Feeling burned out, it was easy for me to become a vegetable all weekend in the name of recovery.

Only to jump back up to 100% effort when Monday rolled around.

I can’t wait for Saturday.

I don’t like the idea of “living for the weekend”.

What good does it do to just get Monday through Friday over with?

What’s actually stopping anyone from enjoying these FIVE days of the week besides the habit of Saturday-Sunday freedom we all started in elementary school?

This cycle doesn’t work for me anymore.

It’s tiring to jump back and forth between the depths of work and the highs of play, each forced to their extremes in anticipation of an untouched weekend.

For me, all this stark contrast in life enjoyment interupts momentum and makes the week feel like a grind.

Yes, having two days completely off is nice because of the freedom and the uninterrupted relaxation before the work week returns.

But what if the more enjoyable path for me is to allow every day of the week to absorb some of the work load?

Partial, flexible work days on the weekends could bring relief to a once crammed and stressful work week while still allowing for rest, just in a different way.

Ahead, I’ll be sharing my thought process and experience in switching to a 7-day work week and use my schedule as an example of how it can be done.

Why a 7-day work week?

The name of the game during my undergrad was always to get more done with less fatigue.

Let’s start with that.

A somewhat obvious yet important note:

I don’t easily burn out on doing things I like.

This simpified things because I just needed to figure out how to like the things that I had to do anyways.

At the time, these things were:

• Studying

• Research

• Side projects

• Attending lectures

• Working out

Time to go back to the basics? Habit building? Not really.

Creating 5+ habits for the things I just listed could have been the easy productivity answer but I knew myself. There was no way I was going to solidify new habits for each of those things in any reasonable amount of time.

I wanted more energy and enjoyment, not to add to the mountain of things testing my discipline.

So, instead of making more habits and setting more goals, what if I thought about and ordered my tasks differently—allowing strategic transitions between them to feed my overall enjoyment of them?

This thought originated during a walk with a friend as I was attempting to explain why I enjoyed working out so much during one of my busiest quarters ever.

At the time, my days would be filled with homework, attending fast-paced lectures, and racking my brain over new research tasks.

Yet I found time to stick to my workout schedule and actually enjoy it more than if I had nothing to do.

It’s because working out was far less mentally demanding.

It was a welcome change of pace and scenery from the academic struggles of the day.

Ultimately, I learned that:

Anything less mentally intense than what I’ve been doing all day feels like a break.

Since then, I’ve found that the same works for other things at narrower scales.

For example, if I had two homework assignments where one was to solve four physics problems using differential equations and the other was to watch a show from the 1950s, I was willing to bet that the show was gonna feel like a break even though I was still doing homework. So I’d solve two physics problems, watch the show, then solve two more.

Armed with the power of switching it up, I started to think about my tasks for the day as an alternating flow between three categories of activities insead a long list of things to get over with.

These categories were:

• Mental challenges

• Creative explorations

• Athletics

I was able to stay out for most of the day doing things that were good for my academics, hobbies, and physical health while staying more energetic than if I stopped in the middle for a break.

Note: I had done this a lot before. Stopping in the middle of the day for a nice long, comforting break as a justified reward for completing my lectures did NOT work for me and it took so long to realize. It got really hard for me to ramp back up for my harder tasks ahead.

The reduced intensity of one thing relative to another gave me breaks as I worked.

It’s like if you’re jogging at a brisk pace and then you slow down a little. You’re not stopping. You’re still making progress, but you’re recovering too.

Reduced intensity from one activity to another wasn’t the only way I was secretly letting myself rest.

Even switching to a more difficult activity could feel rejuvenating because of the novelty. I allowed myself to walk away when I was doing the same thing for too long. So even if the new activity was more intense, like attempting some PRs in a workout or getting into an ego battle with one really tough math problem, I’d feel refreshed.

With this strategy, my breaks snuck in to my day as I switched between mental challenges, creative explorations, and athletics.

Now, I’m taking these ideas and applying them at a larger scale in my post-undergrad life.

In addition to maintaining a steady, alternating pursuit of required and personal health activities while avoiding long dopamine-rich breaks in the middle of my days, I am now managing an unbroken stream of work days focused on either my jobs or my projects without a richly relaxing weekend resetting my momentum.

I’m scaling my old strategies for hourly task management up to flows across many days.

The Weekdays

College-me had a flexible schedule and plenty of variation in the type of work I accumulated.

But what about now?

How do I get those same ideas to fit into a totally new environment—a defined 40+ hour work week?

My calibration job has me working weekday evenings.

My tutoring job has flexible scheduling.

I want to structure those hours in a way that uses my 7-day work week idea without causing burnout.

So I do my full time job during the week as required, but I choose to schedule my part time job for the weekends only.

Instead of trying to fit both jobs within Monday-Friday, I spread out the work across all 7 days.

I feel like I have much more breathing room this way and as a result, I’m far less stressed.

Since I’m working an evening shift, I don’t have to worry too much about waking up extremely early and I can spend the first part of the day doing what I want.

So I get to commit my Monday-Friday mornings to reading, writing, or project work and a slow wake-up.

While I’m at work Monday-Friday, I like to entertain myself with podcasts, writing down ideas in my journals, and thinking about my projects. Since I’m doing this passively when work is slow, I get to spend more of my free time actually taking steps towards my goals when I’m at home.

The Weekends

This is the time I spend tutoring and doubling down on my personal projects.

I could have protected my weekend by scheduling my tutoring time for the work week and by cramming more project work into my mornings and evenings, but instead, I saved those things for the weekend.

This lets me maintain my energy for my main job during the weekdays and consistent progress on my other goals without as much pressure throughout the whole week.

Since I spend roughly half of each weekend day working on my tutoring and personal projects, I don’t feel like I’m jumping from 0% to 100% effort when Monday arrives because I’ve been maintaining a comfortable yet productive pace all weekend instead of shutting down for two days.

I’m even spending more time with friends and family this way because while few days are totally open, every day is a lot more open than it would have been. This frees me to meet with people in the mornings and nights of the weekdays, and during the second half of my days over the weekends.

I can’t wait for tomorrow.

If you know someone thinking about switching their schedule up, go ahead and invite them to this conversation!

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What I Want To Try Next

One weekend, I went out and bought some art supplies to compliment my articles and notes posts with visuals that I make by hand.

I haven’t started official drawings yet but I experimented a little bit and I like the outcomes I’m able to get.

One other weekend, I bought and started using my first 3d printer.

I’m excited to spend parts of my weekends building on my drawing and printing skills and maybe even documenting them as I progress.

I might be spreading myself too thin here but there are a couple groups of things I’m learning on the side to enhance my ability to build certain projects.

Group 1

• Web Development

• Qiskit for Quantum Computing

• Error correction theory

Group 2

• 3d modelling and printing

• Electronics

• Drawing for design

It’s a little too much to learn all of this at once but I’ve been picking and choosing the skills I think are the most useful for the things I want to build so I’ve been exploring these topics, poking and prodding for reasons to either continue or hold off on them.

I’m exploring these things across both my weekdays and weekends but I’m excited to consolidate my focus on the most impactful skills once I decide which ones they are.

Thanks for reading! If you feel the urge to apply some of the things I shared in this article feel free to subscribe to my newsletter to stay updated on my future posts! You can expect casual productivity experiments, personal project dev blogs, and reflection-driven inspirational stories.

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My alarm buzzes as I lay in bed half awake. My eyes won’t open. My legs can’t move.

Just 30 more minutes

I grab my phone to start a 30 minute timer.

Just a little longer

Surely this extra time won’t cost me much?

A couple timer resets later and it’s 11:30 am. I’m rushing out the door with half-done hair and no breakfast just to make it to class on time.

There are 24 hours in a day and I feel 5 hours behind every time I wake up.

I need to make a change.

A week ago I made a commitment to getting up earlier each morning until I hit 6:30 am.

I wanted to start my days with activities that kept me on track with fulfilling my personal priorities:

• Classroom success

• Research progress

• Creative development

This morning I ended that 30 minute snooze timer 29 minutes early.

No more sleeping in. No more momentum sabotage.

In just five days, I’ve gone from being collapsed in bed at 11:00 am to striding out the door at 7:00 am.

This has been a personal victory because over the past six months I’ve learned that I personally get better work done in the morning than at any other time.

I used to be a night owl who would work until 2 am, eat, and then crash into a slumber that would carry me into the middle of tomorrow.

The routine burned me out because I felt like I was catching up all day. It worked for many around me, but not me.

On top of that, my rest time mixed with my work time, inhibiting my ability to decide when I should or should not work.

I would wake up just in time for my lectures, hurry to the library to get my homework started, and then alternate between short breaks and shorter work sessions until the late hours of the night.

It turns out I was always working much slower because of how tired I got throughout the day with this cycle of “catching up”.

Now that I’m on a morning-focused routine, I’m getting the same amount of work done more quickly and even with more enjoyment.

What’s more? This fundamental shift in my schedule makes me feel ahead of the day and by consequence, more motivated and more energized.

But wouldn’t it be harder to break the habit of sleeping in when you also have to tackle hours of early studies right away?

Not at all.

I was able to build this habit through an experiment I started.

Over this one-week experiment, I effortlessly poured an extra 20 hours into finals studying, Substack engagement, and Procreate practice with one simple routine.

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Creating With Coffee

I used to sporadically drink coffee.

Maybe I’d drink one halfway through the day to recharge after class, maybe I’d want an evening energy boost for studying, maybe I’d sneak one in at 12 am for an all-nighter.

I usually kept it to one coffee a day but I had no idea when I would be having it.

Amidst brainstorming ways to control my daily energy and boost my productivity it became clear to me that this haphazard coffee consumption needed to be straightened out.

As a college student living in the middle of Seattle, I have the luxury of choosing between dozens of coffee shops within walking distance to visit.

I can play to that by choosing to get out of bed a few hours before my first lecture and use that time to visit a cafe I’m excited to work in.

So the core of this experiment became:

Make time for a morning cafe visit.

Every morning.

For a week.

I started this routine to improve one aspect of myself.

My capacity for focused work.

My cafe strategy fulfilled three crucial pieces to achieve this:

• Do something I look forward to right after I wake up

• Commit to doing 2+ hours of focused work in the morning

• Repeat the process at the same time each day

I committed to going to a cafe right after waking up because it’s always a source of enjoyment for me.

But if I was going to allow myself to go to a cafe every day, I needed to get that money and time value back in the form of 2+ hours of deliberate progression towards my goals each day.

That was an easy trade in my mind.

To make it stick, I chose to repeat this process every day for the week.

Those extra 20 hours I ended up gaining in the form of focused work used to be a confusing late-night mess of distraction-inhibited studying and inefficient breaks sprinkled with guilt for not doing more, sooner.

This cafe experiment is my way of officially rejecting that experience.

Takeaways

To make this possible for myself, I borrowed a couple principles from Deep Work by Cal Newport.

• Use solitude to consolidate your focus

• Develop routines to signal the start (and end) of deep work

Cal Newport defines deep work as “the act of focusing without distraction on a cognitively demanding task”.

This has grown into my favorite method for getting things done.

I can’t claim to execute it perfectly whenever I want, but I do come much closer to true deep work during my mornings in the corner of one coffee shop or another with a 12 oz latte warming the air around my keyboard.

If, like me, you find yourself struggling to consistently work towards your next big goal, consider giving this a try:

1. Reserve time within the first half of your day for a focused work session

2. Spend that time somewhere that relaxes and inspires you

3. Defend this time and put it towards your goal’s most important tasks

1. Start your day your way

I’ve found that when I put effort into taking control of the beginning of my day, the rest of it goes smoothly.

Instead of starting the day with no breakfast and rushing to your first appointment, you can build in the freedom to put some extra time into your side business, pressing work tasks, or even your creative projects.

2. Find your ideal workspace

For me, cafes work great.

I’m out and about—simultaneously connected to what’s going on around me and isolated enough to take advantage of Cal Newport’s concept of deep work.

I get to ease into my work sessions with a cup of coffee while stationed between a rain-covered window and a 7-foot tall house plant.

I chose a setting that is comforting, inspiring, and accessible.

This doesn’t literally have to be a cafe for you but prioritizing relaxation, isolation, and enjoyment in your space only sets you up for a better, more consistent work session.

3. Spend your energy on what’s most important to you

I’m not just going to cafes to wake up slowly and spend all my money on coffees and croissants.

I’m there to give my long-term ambitions a chance.

I recommend you make it clear what your most important goal is and spend this time getting a head start on it.

With this routine, I’ve managed to fill my days with energy and drop the unnecessary stress I experienced for so long.

So can you.

(Reader Note: If you really like working at night, try this experiment during the hours that work for you and tell me about it!)

Thanks for reading! If you got something out of this article feel free to subscribe to my newsletter to stay updated on my future posts! You can expect productivity inspiration, personal project dev blogs, and actionable habit-building stories.

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My last undergraduate quarter is finally here.

That was quick.

Just a moment ago I was opening my dormroom door for the first time, imagining the academic years ahead of me.

The remnant summer sun streaked through blinds masking the south-facing window as I said bye to my family.

The closing of the door marked the beginning of my most transformative phase of life.

Fast forward three years.

I’m sitting at a wooden table in the center of one of my go-to coffee shops, writing down what my next steps should be.

Once this final quarter is over, I’ll graduate into a world without the structure of curricula to ease my mind on whether or not I’m on track to leading a successful life.

For 15 years it’s been:

If I’m doing good in school, I’m doing everything right.

Once this quarter is over, I’ll be focused on finding a job, competing for a spot in graduate school, and making time to explore the passions that will shape my life.

But passions can be difficult to keep consistent.

I see a lot of people ask questions like:

Is there a perfect career out there for me?

What if I’m missing out on my “true passion” because I haven’t found it yet?

Since I started college I have used a mindset that solves these insecurities by default.

Because of that, I get to start this next phase of my life with clear passions and consistent work enjoyment.

If you feel uncertainty in whether you can enjoy your work, I invite you to read on. In 5 minutes, you’ll absorb how I stay confident during these times by creating my passions rather than searching for them.

Hi! I’m an aspiring scientist with much to learn and plenty to share. If you like student life, enjoyable productivity, and following along with self-learning journeys, I’d love to regularly share them all with you.

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Cal Newport’s craftsman mindset

On my college move-in day, my dad had brought up a mindset that eventually grew into the foundation of my work motivation, academic confidence, and career enjoyment.

He said it was called the craftsman mindset.

This mindset was proposed by Cal Newport as a philosophy for systematically achieving career fulfillment and success.

Essentially, this mindset rejects the common advice to “find your passion and pursue it”, replacing it with a focus on becoming dedicated to mastering something rare and valuable.

The part that hooked me the most was the reasoning that generally, there is no “perfect job” out there to discover.

Instead of searching for one, a fulfilling career is something that could be built through a commitment to mastering skills with value.

With the logic that I enjoy doing things I’m good at, I figured that Cal Newport was right about passion getting built alongside skills.

So I attacked my undergraduate years with the mission to build myself a valuable passion, not find it.

Less uncertainty.

More conviction.

Faster growth.

These all appealed to me so I prioritized them by focusing on a specific field.

My choice to pursue quantum computing with this mindset kept me focused on a specific field of study with the confidence that it wasn’t keeping me from potential passions that I hadn’t discovered yet.

In hindsight, I feel that I wouldn’t have gotten the experiences I’ve had if I’d been constantly worried about if I was chasing the right career for me because I knew that I was building it.

Expanding the philosophy

I’ve had such a good experience with this way of thinking over the past three years that I recently started wondering if I could start expanding my skillset with the same mindset.

While I followed the craftsman mindset with rigor and consistency I needed to achieve my goals, I felt that I was overdoing it a little.

I relentlessly jumped on any quantum computing opportunity I could find and I will continue to do so, but I spent the vast majority of my education improving math and physics without much regard for powerful skills which could compliment them in the long-term.

So what if I leaned in the direction of mastering a few valuable skills outside of physics as well?

It may seem like I’m straying from the craftsman mindset here but I don’t really think I am because I’m doing this to compliment my plan to master my chosen physics and computing skills.

After so much focus on one field, I recently decided that I need a creative outlet.

This can be another skill I strive to master with the same mindset except its purpose is to build a skillset which compliments my career path.

I chose writing.

No matter what my career truly resembles in the future, communication is something I’ll always need.

It’s a general skill which takes many forms, so I believe writing to be the most versatile and valuable creative option for me.

Something I realized over the course of my time in physics and being a craftsman and so on, is that learning is an addicting thing.

The early phase is fueled with curiosity and quick, addictive improvement.

After that comes a slog during which the effort to improve a little is high, but real results eventually compliment it, giving the work a heightened sense of worth.

Throughout the whole process, there is something to keep me going and I hope others can recognize that for themselves as well.

The benefits

Branching out with the craftsman mindset has had a couple key benefits:

• Life becomes vivid

• Breaks become healthy

Newly vivid life

Putting time into creative outlets such as writing has, to me, become a habit of high benefit, similar to that of my use of the craftsman mindset.

That benefit is that I feel so much more present in my life.

Whenever I see an inspiring study spot or writing corner as I’m going about my day, I can’t help but notice it and maybe even return to it at some point.

Whenever I’m having a conversation, I more often feel engaged and invested in it.

Whenever I think about my breaks from school I have the urge to travel somewhere just to set up a perfect vacation spot for morning writing.

For some reason, creative hobbies motivate so much interest in life and discovering new ways to spend my time.

The choice to share the experiences and realizations I’ve had as a student makes me want to have more.

Breaks that work

In the past, I often spent my breaks away from school cycling through several lazy activities.

I was a hard-working student who deserved such things during break no?

Sure, but maybe they weren’t the best things I could have done if I wanted to feel refreshed and excited once school resumed.

I often left school breaks fairly drained and with less motivation to truly excel in my life afterwards.

I was stuck in the “I deserve to lounge for a bit longer” mentality which made it an unnecessary struggle to return to the rigors of college academics.

Then I made a change over a week-long Spring break.

I continued to get up at a reasonable hour and spent that time (along with most of the day) on my creative hobbies.

This worked wonders because I felt refreshed and inspired all day and I made tangible progress in my creative skills.

I strengthened my ability to write consistently, I studied new drawing techniques, and I learned more about myself as I shared these skills with my family and friends.

Now, at the end of break, I haven’t lost my ability to focus, I learned how to generate unbound inspiration, I have refined my working philosophy, and I’ve spiked my determination to maximize the final push for my Bachelors degree.

Takeaways

If I convinced you to look for deliberate changes you can make in your life to secure your passions and feel more energized, I recommend this:

• Try out the craftsman mindset to inspire a career choice without the fear of missing out on undiscovered passions

• Look for a creative outlet that compliments your work or your life

• Grow both your creative interest and your work interest with the craftsman mindset and notice how easily your passions for them follow

If you learned something new or otherwise resonated with this article, I welcome you to subscribe to stay updated on my future posts!

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I’m in college to get disgustingly good at something.

I’m motivated, this is epic, I’m gonna be amazing.

But then someone asks:

What are your career plans?

A simple question that is so difficult to have a good answer for right out of high school.

When I started college, my answer was something like:

Oh, I’ll get my degree and then I’ll get a job with that degree. Maybe I’ll go to grad-school too. That sounds good…

For many, the path through university is a reliable way to end up with a job that pays a decent amount.

For others, it’s best to get a head-start with work and business-building without the weight of college debt.

For me, I didn’t know yet at the time.

While not everyone agrees with the choice to seek higher education and some say that it’s a waste of money, I now believe in the process as long as the time is spent well.

However, there was a long period of uncertainty that came with my choice.

I often asked myself:

How do I actually get paid doing this? Careers are all about making money right?

As I took class after class in electromagnetism, quantum mechanics, particles and symmetries, mathematical physics… — I had no clear game plan for becoming qualified to really apply physics outside of my homework.

• I didn’t know what real lab work looked like and I didn’t think I had an adequate history of technical achievements to get a position.

• I was a good student in high school but I didn’t have a prodigious resume stocked with the engineering projects, solo-research papers, and hackathon wins that one might see on Quora’s top threads for student job hunting.

At this point, I knew I wanted to build a career in quantum computing but I had little confirmation that I was on the right path.

If you’re someone who is striving for a career you enjoy, keep reading to find out my three biggest takeaways from navigating doubt and rejection to get my first paid opportunity working within my interests.

Internship rejections and summers in retail

Right out of high school I got a job as a grocery clerk at a local store.

This was my first experience with regularly making money by the hour.

I enjoyed the job well enough but I had different goals and I was anxious to work towards them.

During my first year of college, I looked into internships for the next summer.

It was a little draining to filter out 95% of the opportunities by relevance only to read through qualifications that I didn’t have for the 5% that remained.

*Preferred Qualifications:

• Two years of physics coursework completed

• Relevant research experience

• One letter of recommendation*

I scraped together a resume anyways.

It ended up stocked with high school rewards and statistics and it mentioned my recently developed skills in excel along with my beginner/intermediate skills with Python and Java.

Nothing special. Especially for someone aspiring to break into the field of quantum computing which favors those with a variety of deep technical skills, a strong foundation in math, and some form of experience in projects or research.

But I was proud of it anyways.

So I sent it off to several opportunities I found off of Handshake.

I poured my heart into the applications but months went by without a reply until I just forgot about them.

I did get a couple responses but they didn’t start with the word “congratulations”.

Oof

I just started my degree and my confidence was already diminished.

But this process was good for me because it resulted in a sobering self reflection on where I truly was and what I needed to do to get to where I wanted to be.

Making some changes

I spent the next summer working in retail again.

But…

I also joined a beginner research project on climate change, I took an extra math class, and I spent $15 on a discounted Udemy course about quantum computing.

As a result of poking my nose into the deep, competition-dense well of online job hunting, I was motivated to upgrade my work-ethic and focus on tangible accomplishments.

• I joined the physics mentoring program at my school for extra guidance.

• I started touring labs to meet professors in person and learn about their work.

• I sent follow-up emails to set up in-person meetings

Eventually, my (somewhat stubborn) persistence landed me position in an ion trap quantum computing lab.

What in the world is “ion trapping”? I don’t know but I’m gonna try it.

Upon joining the group, I got in the habit of saying “yes” to pretty much every opportunity to work on something and stopped feeling like I needed the validation of paid work to feel like I belonged.

It was clear the group cared about my learning and skill-building throughout the lab which made my growth in physics feel comfortable for the first time.

This is so interesting that I’d do it for free.

I’ve seen this idea all over the place but I haven’t actually applied it until this point.

Eventually I finished my first group project.

It was an ion trap demonstration which got implemented into an advanced quantum technology lab course for students to learn from.

This is the moment all my doubts got put to rest because I really enjoyed what I was doing.

By consequence, the success I had with my group along with a little luck with school funding resulted in an opportunity to stay on the team to help build another trap demo.

But this time, instead of working for credits, I was supported by a Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) stipend.

My takeaways

One of my biggest struggles during this journey was knowing whether I was spending my time well or not for the goal of getting paid to work on my interests.

If I could do it again I’d:

• Prioritize in-person networking

• Spend more free time learning relevant skills

• Avoid letting money be the motivation

Prioritize in-person networking

Sending out emails is an okay starting point but it isn’t the best way to get what you want. A lot of them can go unnoticed or lead to dead ends.

I found the most success after I met a professor in-person during a lab tour and THEN followed up with an email setting up a separate meeting to discuss my potential involvement in their lab.

From free time to skill-building time

I found myself both more interested and more capable in all things quantum computing after I had completed that Udemy course.

The skills I learned were invaluable for engaging in common discussions and understanding the field and they made any mention of quantum computing more interesting to me because I had more to say about it.

Money shouldn’t be the goal

Not at this early stage at least.

I never came close to the privilege of earning money with my interest in quantum computing until I become so obsessed with and fulfilled from it that I’d do it for free while in school.

This came in the form of consistently networking and exploring, saying “yes” to every relevant task or opportunity, and taking time out of my summer to learn more math and build a foundation in quantum computing skills.

What you can do

There isn’t really a quick or easy way to get day-dream-worthy opportunities in a field. Even after this, I feel that I’ve only just begun my journey into quantum computing.

But it is quick AND easy to start.

I bet you can find multiple ways to use just one of these takeaways before the end of the month.

Go reach out to that club you’ve been on the fence about joining, attempt a personal mini-hackathon next Saturday, think about something you’d do for free and take two hours to do it this week.

If you like the change, keep it. If not, don’t. Our lives aren’t obligated to mirror each other.

Either way, make the pursuit for your ideal life a habit you refuse to drop.

Learning for your passion of the subject is deeply enjoyable and surprisingly efficient from what I’ve experienced over the past three years.

Your opportunities will follow.

Thank you for reading! If you learned something or simply want to read more, consider subscribing to stay informed on my upcoming posts.

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“NO WAY!”

I jump off of the couch as my roommate mentions a life-changing class starting this month.

The cloud-covered sun is nearly below the horizon, so it’s yet another late evening in our college apartment.

Washington rain is pounding against the tall South-pointing window of our living room as diligent bikers defy the winter torrent and unfortunate library regulars speed home with books over their heads.

Under the warm yellow light of our overhanging lamp, my roommate and I are spending this stormy day browsing courses to register for.

Since the moment my lectures ended, I’ve been scouring my university website for a schedule with two aspects:

1. It fills out some physics degree requirements

2. It interests me

I’ve just gotten through the weed-out classes of freshman year and early sophomore year.

Don’t I finally deserve a more tailored schedule for my interests? Aren’t I here to experience a flexible education that qualifies me for a fulfilling career?

Maybe.

But it’s still looking like I don’t get to have my ideal schedule yet because I still need to fill out requirements like “take two advanced lab courses”.

Not only that but these courses further constrain my progress through:

1. Availability (when it’s offered and whether it’s full or not)

2. Time commitment (can I balance this with my other courses this quarter?)

I don’t see a good time to take an “advanced lab” during my junior or senior years, and I’m not even interested in what’s available.

“What’s the name again?”, I ask.

“Advanced Topics in ECE: Quantum Technologies”, he reminds me.

Rolling thunder echos in the distance…rattling our evening mugs of apple cider and causing our big yellow light to flicker dramatically.

(not really but it would’ve been cool)

From the title alone, my only thoughts were:

How do I get in, this is my chance, is it possible to get in??

I’ve been diving deep into my interest in quantum computing since day one of college but the topic has been (officially speaking) out of reach for me since then because of my mandatory classes.

But here it is. My first chance to get formal education on my deepest academic interest.

I cannot pass this up.

This is my chance to get more involved.

This is my chance to take my official education into my own hands!

But despite my excitement, I can’t just sign up.

There are two big issues:

1. I’m not sure I can get in because I’m just a sophomore and my course load leaves me under-qualified.

2. According to the university site, even if I do get in, I can’t use this class for my requirement because it’s not part of the physics department.

So yeah, I’m just gonna give up and call it a day…

Nah.

I’m going to get that lab course on my schedule.

What’s more? I’m gonna make this count for my advanced lab requirement too, enabling me to chase my, sometimes delusional, dream of changing the world with “computer atoms” without sacrificing any degree progress.

While there are two issues, I have two solutions:

1. I know a guy

2. My guy knows a guy

The funny thing is that’s exactly it.

How did I get to the point where getting what I want became so simple?

I worked hard to get into the world of university research as early as possible and the only way to reach that goal was to network.

A lot.

As a freshman, I started this goal because all I knew at the time was that research is hard, it requires experience to get good, and I want to do it.

This pursuit wasn’t something I wanted to put off until my latter years of college because, by then, I planned to already have the skills and know-how to contribute meaningfully to projects of my choice before graduating.

Here’s what I did:

• I learned how to write a good email and reached out to every interesting research group I could find.

• I joined the Physics Mentor Program for guidance on how to grow and participate in the physics community.

• I happily accepted an invitation to join my first research group in the middle of my freshman year.

In short, these experiences taught me invaluable skills and connected me to another team focused on trapping atoms for quantum computers.

So cool.

After some front-loaded effort and a little luck, I was happily situated in a strong network of professors and students before starting my second year.

Back to this crucial moment of crafting my first dream schedule.

By chance, after me being involved with this new group for a while, my second guiding research professor took on a position involving lots of student interaction and coordination.

So I kindly asked him to help me count the Quantum Technologies course as my advanced lab requirement.

Meet with me about it in my office.

Oh no. I need to convince him. What do I say? How do I do that?

I tell him about the class and how connected it is to the project I’m already doing with him. It turns out that’s convincing enough and he already planned on helping me out.

Problem 1 solved.

By another chance (as alluded to above), the project I’m working on played a pivotal role in the development of the course I want to get into.

Since my research professor knows the course professor, I email them about who I work with and if I can get into the course as a sophomore. They say yes!

Problem 2 solved.

Look at that. I effectively phased through two consecutive walls that would have completely blocked me from taking on my perfect quarter schedule just by talking to two people.

Rolling thunder echos in the distance…

(Maybe it did this time, maybe it didn’t)

Networking as an undergraduate is vital if you want to get access to things you’re interested in and have experiences you actually want.

By no means is my story a step-by-step playbook for getting your dream schedule, but I hope it inspires you to talk to that person you’ve been meaning to connect with.

While the rewarding results aren’t always immediately apparent, they may come by chance half a year down the road like they did for me.

But, knowing that, adopting the attitude that networking is always relevant will lead you to great things if you’re persistent enough on and off your standard work or school hours.

Make meaningful connections that help you enjoy your journey.

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this personal story, feel free to check out my other story, Two Sizes Too Big or the post that inspired this one, How to Obtain Your Dream College Schedule.

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Why hunt for a pre-conceived and rarely existing “dream college life” when you can practically guarantee it by making it out of something that’s already available to you?

Many of us have experienced the joys and disappointments of starting a new educational phase of life.

Regularly making commitments to new complicated schedules that may make or break our long-term success is a difficult thing to go through.

We’ve had hopes and ideals for the next few years sobered as we found that some classes became unavailable, our favorite teacher retired, or we lost interest.

Whether this happened in high school or college, whether it’s currently happening or long finished, it’s not too late to learn from it.

So how can we derive satisfaction from these periods?

How can we build schedules that we are confident in?

How can we get excited about the education we’ve thrusted upon ourselves?

Spend 5 minutes learning what took me six years to figure out below.

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Decide on your flexible long term path

Pre-med or math? English or history? Physics or engineering?

There are so many career paths out there. How do we pick?

I personally bounced between a few at the end of high school. I was really into math but I wanted to do something applied. I loved computer science but I wanted something more flexible. I even took a crazy turn into the world of art.

I finally decided on physics.

If you already know what you want to do, by all means, go for it. But if you’re deciding on career paths and you’re unsure and time is running out, try out a widely applicable field.

This will give you the option to make clean pivots further down the road if you feel the need.

You’ll also be able to take comfort in knowing that if your chosen major isn’t exactly what you wanted and you don’t know what to switch to, it’s at least a good stepping stone to get you where you want to be.

With your major chosen, make sure to build a good understanding of the pathways available to you as soon as possible.

Find those interesting pivots and career overlaps and identify classes you could see yourself turning into a passion.

The most helpful thing I was forced to do in college was review all of my major’s available classes and form a full four-year plan before I applied to it.

This process multiplied my understanding of what my university offered me and which routes I could feasibly take.

So do this yourself before committing. Research your major and your pathways to find the most exciting and motivating roads. If you can’t find ANY paths that spark some interest in you, maybe you should simply pick a different major and work from there, happy to have narrowed down your scope.

Target a niche you enjoy

Exploring specializations in undergrad is extremely important for learning about what you want to do and what you’re good at.

When I was halfway through my freshman year, I attended a physics grad student panel which aimed to share insights from Masters and PhD students.

Here’s my biggest takeaway from that panel:

Spend your undergraduate years exploring. You have more freedom than you think to take a class or join a club you don’t strictly need which could inspire a fulfilling passion.

When you find a niche, you’ll be ecstatic when you stumble across any course that targets it.

I wholeheartedly believe that this is an underrated way to drive immense amounts of motivation towards attacking our next college schedule because while your school may have always offered it, YOU discovered a class exactly about what YOU were already interested in.

You didn’t grudgingly take on something as a last resort or compromise your interests for credits or GPA.

You found a class that prompts dreams of a potential career and sparks nervous excitement in your gut just from its description.

To paint a clearer picture, my jump into physics led me to explore a specialization in quantum computing. I saw this as a fantastic way to explore my interests in both computer science and physics while making strong progress in my major. Now, every time I see a class that targets the skills I need for qubit research or quantum software development, I jump on it immediately and wait eagerly for the next quarter to start.

Now, it’s important to remember that by no means does your specialization of today confine you for tomorrow. Consistency is key to success however you define it but you have the freedom to explore multiple specializations and go through phases.

I attended a career panel at the University of Minnesota’s Quantum + Chips summer program and learned that most PhD students go on to a successful career focused on anything but their PhD specialization!

This isn’t to say that they wasted their time. It means that the skills they built and the act of pursuing their fields to great lengths displayed their potential to contribute strongly within any work environment.

So explore niches that interest you, use them to drive excitement for your courses, and switch them if they aren’t for you or double down hard if you love them. Whatever happens, you’ll be making valuable progress while doing what you enjoy.

Network. A lot.

So you’ve picked a major and a niche.

You find it easy to get excited for some of your classes.

But your major still has some less-than-desirable requirements and you still want to choose the best possible path for you.

This is where networking can get you access to tailored pathways that aren’t generally available.

Part of my major requirements are to complete two advanced labs. Last year, I knew two things about this:

1. I wasn’t thrilled by my options

2. I had been enjoying my choice specialization in quantum computing and my hands-on experience with it in my research group

Then something like a miracle happened.

I learned that a professor closely affiliated with the lab I worked in was offering a first-ever lab course in quantum technologies through the electrical and computer engineering department.

Perfect!

The problem, however, was that this dream lab of mine wouldn’t work for me because it was part of a different department and I was also a little under-qualified based on my courses completed.

But I emailed the professor of the lab to ask if I could get in because of my extra-curricular experience and I met with my research professor to see if I could count the course towards my advanced lab requirements and both worked out!

My point with this is to show that if you focus on building connections in your areas of interest, you can find opportunities that boost your efficiency in pursuing what you want while satisfying the requirements you’re obligated to fulfill.

So don’t shy away from the people that are doing what you want to do. They are willing to help more often than you’d think.

Thank you for making it to the end! If you learned something from this article, feel free to subscribe so you don’t miss out on my regular posts about becoming more productive and getting more out of your environment.

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We all experience times when our only goal is to get through the day.

Obligations become draining, bare minimum work feels challenging, and rest fails to energize us. These grueling 24 hour cycles sometimes become so frequent that we convince ourselves that they are just normal.

“Normal” days don’t have to be this way.

In my experience, the structure of my morning heavily dictates the value of my day. Although everyone is different, I’m assuming one other person shares this thought.

So let’s fix the morning, and through that, fill our normal days with enjoyment and value rather than with unnecessary stress and underperformance.

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Over the past three months I’ve bolstered the strength of my mornings with one simple strategy.

Gradually swap bad habits for good ones.

My original morning routine was something like:

• Wake up at 10:00 am

• Skip breakfast to make it to my meeting

• Get ready quickly and rush out the door

• Forget something and double back…

These bullets directly resulted in an ill-planned day of underpreparedness and low energy, leading to a late night of catching up and an immediate repetition of the cycle.

This trend can last for a long time because as we go about our daily lives without acknowledging the root causes of our stressors, we feel no need to change.

In fact, I’ve found that I and others around me often just get used to these extra frantic days until we burn out a few months later.

On paper, this looks terrible.

Seeing this all written out, it’s blaringly obvious to both of us that my old abstract problems of lower energy, motivation, discipline, and therefore productivity and joy originated from a procrastinated morning.

This might, to some extent, be the case for you too.

So here are four impactful habits you can build into your morning routine to transform your daily preparedness, level of energy, and productive consistency.

Wake up 15 minutes early to journal

One thing I learned from Atomic Habits by James Clear was to start small when building habits.

By this I mean, you don’t have to struggle through a sudden massive change to enjoy the benefits of your drive. So I didn’t change my morning all at once.

And you don’t have to either.

I started by waking up 15 minutes earlier to write for a little bit.

This writing can be about anything. The writing I found easiest to produce in my journal was always about my tasks and goals. As I wrote about them, I learned that I was focusing on too many different things at once with each thing being inconsistently tended to.

It seemed ridiculous!

Forcing the jumbled, ever-changing thoughts and ideas in my head into words on a page sort of collapsed their content into simple, concrete statements. This gave me a better sense of direction and focused my mind on what mattered for that day.

So I recommend you start small with this one. Whittle your journaling time down to 5 minutes if you want. This habit may serve as the foundation to these next three game-changers.

Loosely plan your day

This addition to your morning routine may be even easier than the first in that you can get this done during your journaling session in the first few minutes of the day.

Right after journaling about whatever (goals and tasks in my case), I started putting day plan suggestions in my calendar.

I found that these were amazing for boosting my daily clarity because first thing in the morning I’ve already considered exactly what I value for that day and when I would like to invest time into those values.

Your blocks don’t have to be strict, they can simply be there to motivate you to work towards your goals and values during the times you chose.

Like me, you might find that the activation energy for these commitments drops dramatically when a simple tentative plan is already in place.

If you’d like to explore these first two habits a little more, I found Ali Abdaal’s YouTube channel helpful in motivating these changes.

Prioritize having a daily low-stress work session

This is a big step that can grant you a daily head-start with a work session inspired by Cal Newport’s book, Deep Work.

Immediately after planning out what you wanted to do for the day (assuming you wrote in the morning) this addition to your morning structure would solidify your momentum with immediate action.

This work session should be a mixture of getting ahead on your priority work and exploring whatever side interests you may have. You’ll also likely benefit from finding a distraction-free environment you can focus in for two or more hours.

But remember:

The point of this is to be something you want to do.

So after a comfortable amount of mandatory work, sprinkling in some learning for your web development side hustle or starting that short story you’ve wanted to write since last year are great things to do with this time.

I always like to wake up early enough to treat myself at a nearby cafe (with good music taste) while I get ahead on my goals for the day as I wake up at my own pace.

Experiment with what works for you and start with short work sessions if the habit feels too cumbersome. Let this be a smooth process that you enjoy returning to. You may find that you’re shaping the day to be on your terms.

Engage in opportunity hunting

To cap off your morning, I recommend you leisurely surf the web for various opportunities you find interesting.

For me this looks like jumping between internship descriptions and research programs that align with my long term goals.

You could find it reinvigorating and inspiring to browse sites like Handshake and LinkedIn for opportunities that match your career interests and who you want to become. But while the act of refining your sense of what jobs are out there and what skills you need is beneficial, it’s not the only reason to do this.

I finish my morning work sessions with opportunity hunting because it serves as a reminder of why I do what I do. It’s my way to step back for a second and look at the bigger picture before I begin some useless inner monologue amplifying the question:

Is there a point to what I’m doing?

Because there is.

I am by no means telling you to do exactly what I do. But I do want to inspire you to take your first steps towards building your own morning routine that shapes your day the way you want.

Thank you for reading! If you learned something or found this article helpful, consider subscribing to stay informed on my upcoming posts.

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Are you looking to build valuable skills or decide on whether to pursue graduate studies?

The guest speakers I had the privilege of listening to discussed these topics in depth by sharing their own experiences and sharing the research that has shaped their careers. Here are my 3 biggest takeaways from attending their 20+ talks.

The Niche of Your Degree Doesn’t Confine You

To start, let’s acknowledge a frequent and often difficult-to-resolve question that sits in the minds of students throughout their undergraduate years.

“Should I go to grad school?”

For anyone intent on going far in their field, this is an extremely important question which made itself apparent during a panel discussion about “Career Paths in the Emerging Quantum Industry”.

This panel placed four professionals in front of a hall of roughly 50 students (including myself) who were deeply interested in the next steps they should take in the fields of physics and computing.

One student rose his hand and asked (not exact):

“I’m considering pursuing a Master’s or a PhD but I’m worried that it will lock me into a niche that may not be valuable by the time I’m done.”

Here’s the response he got from the panel (not exact):

“If you want a PhD, completing it and doing a good job gives you the freedom to move into a lot of different roles, it doesn’t lock you into a niche.” - Steve Koester

For so long I associated the pursuit of a PhD as purely a specialization in a field, meant to directly compliment a future career.

According to Steve Koester, the director of the Minnesota Nano Center, it’s a mistake to think about the PhD journey in this way.

The reasoning behind this response is that if a student does well in their PhD research, they are proving that they can learn complicated subjects to a great depth and apply their knowledge effectively.

This is extremely useful in industry and academia.

It also turns out that the subject of a student’s PhD often doesn’t match their resulting career. For example, Tim Peterson, a physicist at Quantinuum, spent his graduate years studying nanofabrication and magnetism but went on to build a career in ion trap quantum computing.

You don’t have to pursue a Master’s or a PhD to become successful. But if you are considering either, you shouldn’t be deterred by a fear of falling permanently into a niche.

Hardware Won’t Die Out

What skills should we put our effort into learning?

This question was reiterated over the course of several guest talks. It rose from the room’s collective interest in learning which reliable skills to build early in a career, especially as a student.

This question is valuable to answer because since our time and energy is precious, it’s important to refine how we spend it to maximize what we get out of our efforts. The students knew this.

The speakers had an answer:

“Hardware and design will always be relevant skillsets” - Tim Peterson

A safe category for interested students to invest their time and energy into is hardware.

Multiple speakers including Tim Peterson, Steve Koester, and Joseph Davies brought up the fact that scalability will always be a focus in the computing industry and the main bottlenecks to that are often hardware problems.

Today’s Unconventional, Tomorrow’s Standard

I’ve defended deep dives into tech niches and suggested a reliable skill genre.

You might now ask:

“So what research is big in computing right now?”

With the current explosion in machine learning, computing demands are growing faster than our ability to compute.

This motivates the heavy research and investment fueling a new class of unconventional computing methods.

Here is an introduction to 3 of the biggest categories in this exciting area:

1. Quantum computing: Takes advantage of quantum mechanical properties to perform many operations at once.

2. In-memory computing: Cuts out the need for communication between the memory and CPU, allowing for faster, lower energy computation.

3. Reversible computing: Seeks to avoid the heat-inducing process of removing data during computation, lowering the difficulty of cooling.

Unconventional computing holds a lot of potential which is why it’s getting attention from big companies like Honeywell, Google, IBM, NVIDIA, and smaller companies like IONQ and Quantinuum. Not to mention the world’s general interest in information security and efficient AI training.

To summarize, your takeaways should be:

1. You aren’t confined to a niche

2. Hardware skills are valuable

3. Unconventional computing deserves your attention

As a student getting involved with physics and computing, I found all of this advice extremely helpful in defining a clear path forward and sparking new interests. If you’re in my situation and you’re starting out in a similar field or an entirely different one of your own, seek insights from professionals. They’ve experienced what we’re going through right now and have valuable answers.

If you learned something new, consider subscribing to my Substack so you don’t miss out on my upcoming posts! Thanks for reading, you’re appreciated.

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The habits you have shape your life.

Here are the three most significant habits I’ve built in college.

Daily Journaling

Maybe you’ve heard of this before, maybe you haven’t. In either case, you should try this out immediately, here’s why:

Daily journaling…

• snaps you out of writer’s block

• organizes your mind

• is a low time commitment

• is easy to pick up

Commiting to journal every day as an active Substack user like yourself will work wonders in helping you ward off the dreaded “writer’s block”.

This is because you’re essentially allowing yourself to write whatever you want however you want.

There is no pressure to show your journal to the world or even read it ever again in private. Freeing up your brain like this can work wonders because you’re warming yourself up to having some truly great ideas.

Even if the great ideas don’t come right when you want them, you can take comfort in knowing that you’re at least organizing your mind.

This mental clarity that you’re giving yourself doesn’t take much time to claim and it can boost your productivity immensely.

And even better, journaling is easy to pick up because the requirements to start are fully met if you’re reading this!

Intentional Listening

We’ve all had a moment when we were falling asleep in class or zoning out during a one-on-one conversation.

How can we avoid these moments while regularly jumpstarting our interests in our own lives?

Intentional listening.

I picked up the habit about a month ago and I never plan on letting this one go. In fact, what inspired me to start was Substack!

Here’s what intentional listening is:

• Finding connections between the speaker’s information and your life

• Using those connections to motivate engagement and value-extraction

My experience with this habit stemmed from my recent commitment to writing regularly on Substack.

When I actively search for things to write about during my day-to-day life I listen much more intently and remember much more.

This had a direct positive impact on my level of engagement at over 20 physics and computing talks and catalyzed more meaningful conversations with the people in my life.

Opportunity Hunting

This habit has single-handedly laid the foundation of my academic journey so far and I believe it can help you wherever you are in your career.

What is opportunity hunting?

Opportunity hunting is what it sounds like. For me this looks like spending an evening browsing through the latest internship and research positions on websites like handshake or even direct company websites such as Google Careers.

This habit has been useful to me for a few reasons:

• It both humbled me and gave me confidence in what qualifications I have

• It inspired me to take on experiences I wouldn’t have otherwise

• It gave me a clear path forward

Just looking at these applications always prompts me to imagine myself in a future where I am participating in these programs.

Looking through the list of “minimum” and “preferred” qualifications forces me to evaluate how competitive I am when I notice I’m underprepared while boosting my confidence when I see a bullet point that matches my skill set or experience.

In short, this low commitment yet powerful routine has always given me clearer roadmaps for the upcoming academic years and fresh surges of motivation to take action.

Subscribe so you don’t miss future posts! You are deeply appreciated.

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When do we consider ourselves adults?

By this I mean, is there a moment when we grow beyond our existence as kids?

This is a difficult question because there is likely no single event or defined journey that leads to such a drastic change in someone’s maturity.

In addition, what it means to BE an adult changes from person to person.

Maybe to you, growing up means getting your first job.

Maybe you refuse to call yourself an adult until you buy your first drink at 21.

Maybe your dominant measure of maturity is your level of independence.

Maybe you consider all of these.

Or none of these.

This morning, I got up early to prepare for a meeting and spent a moment staring through my apartment window. I looked down at the street level and saw a biker making great time on his commute. I scanned the length of a bridge supporting busy cars between two swathes of cityscape divided by a beautifully intrusive river. For the first time in my life, this relatable bustling nudged me towards my own identity of adulthood. But I didn’t know why.

“Why?” is a question I’ve spent a lot of time asking the math scribbled into my notebooks, the principles asserted in my textbooks, the infrequent yet still periodic disappointing test scores which I never want to mention. I’ve spent nearly all of my college experience shying away from asking that one-word question about anything regarding myself.

The “why” is the most important part, because without it, what’s to separate this feeling from any similar arbitrary one? This feeling could have accumulated from the adult-like things I’ve thrown myself into over the past year, whether it was the crossing of bridges for research conferences, or the effort I put into getting to places early. Or perhaps because my roommates moved out, my first home in actual solitude gave me a sense of true independence. But these experiences alone aren’t enough for me to call myself an adult.

“Why”, in the context of myself, if given true attention, becomes a difficult thing to consider. There are so many things we can tell ourselves and HAVE told ourselves about who we are that it’s hard to know for sure.

Our insecurities make us silent procrastinators, keeping our goals and progress limited and private.

Our excuses convincingly justify our episodes of minimal risk and stagnation.

Our denial, fueled by these inevitable imperfections, constructs a sabotaged version of us which I’ll call our fake selves.

These fake selves of ours sometimes grow to be so much more present than who we try to be that they become tragically indistinguishable from who we are.

Recently, my fake self has been receding, enabling me to reach my personal realization by the window. I have crossed the line between growing up and grown up. The distinction between that line being of infinitesimal thickness, requiring a single momentous step to cross, or having a width which covers the entire domain of my life, demanding relentless endurance and self faith, no longer matters.

I didn’t strictly achieve anything great today or experience an event. No gold medal, no diploma, no handshake from a new employer. I didn’t definitively cross some finish line to conclude a decade-long self-improvement journey. I simply started to truly feel comfortable with and proud of where my intrinsic motivation has placed me two years after leaving the soothing permanence of my bedroom back at home.

And with that, my “why” is answered.

Yes, independence and raw age play roles in my personal evaluation of maturity.

Yes, I might have experienced some minor event or ran a half-marathon in personal growth.

But the sum of these alone were never definitive in me obtaining the status defined by my sense of adulthood.

The true final piece for me is and always will be the hard won commitment to assuming the identity the child in me dreamed of and worked for.

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