Hermanni Heimonen

It was clear already during high school that I was deeply interested in understanding how nature works. I wanted to ask the big, fundamental questions about the world. Physics is the language we use to study and answer those questions. It was clear to me that if I really wanted to be able to spend my time asking those big questions, a PhD was the only path for me.

When I was applying for PhD positions I had decided quantum tech was going to be my field. The Centre for Quantum Technologies (CQT) at NUS really stood out to me by it’s research focus and the people there. The theoretical physicists at CQT had a lot of overlap with my research interests, and it also helped that the university is near the city with all its hustle and bustle.

“Like day and night. In undergraduate I was collecting completed classes, and trying to learn according to how someone else thought I should learn. It was interesting to get an overview of many topics, but I never really felt I learned the topics well. Once I got to CQT and got to freely learn about topics that were relevant to my research, with plenty of time to spend on each topic, I really started to properly learn and get a feeling of mastery. It took a lot of time though! My first few times attending our group meetings was scary, because I understood almost nothing. It took me 2 years before I regularly started to be able to follow beyond the second or third slide.

The other big difference was the classmates. Taking graduate courses with just a few other students in a specialised topic is just so much better than sitting in a lecture hall with 100 other undergraduates. When you have 6 classmates and the professor is teaching the topic in a much more conversational way, you can learn 1000x better.”