Future Plans: Graduate School- Ian Davis (senior, Nuclear Engineering)

So now I will be graduating this semester, and the time has come to decide what I want the next step will be. This past summer I battled with the decision to go look for a job or to continue my education with graduate school. I have to say it wasn’t easy. Ultimately, I decided that I wanted to stay in school to get a Master’s degree, and I made this decision for a couple of reasons. For one, I was involved with undergraduate research over the summer, and it was something that I really enjoyed. I felt that I wanted to continue doing research after I graduated from Penn State. Furthermore, graduate school programs for engineering often grant assistantships to the students that they accept. This assistantship pays for tuition and also gives the student a stipend each semester. That was a huge plus! With these things in mind, I knew I was set on graduate school and I just had to figure out where I wanted to go. Already being heavily involved with the Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering Department at Penn State, that was a pretty easy decision. I know most of the professors in the department, and I have a pretty good relationship with the professors I do research for. I would very much like to continue working with them.

And so, I will be continuing my studies with Penn State in the Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering Department. More specifically, I will be conducting research with the Fuel Management and Reactor Dynamics Group. This group focuses on maximizing the efficiency of nuclear fuel, and also developing computer models to simulate a real nuclear reactor. I am very excited about what the next two years will bring, and hope to go work in the nuclear industry once I have my Master’s degree.

- Ian Davis