Congratulations on being admitted to Keene State College. The Admissions Office has informed us that you have expressed an interest in majoring in one of our Physics programs. We take this opportunity to welcome you and to acquaint you with our programs.
The Physics programs at Keene State College involve two comprehensive majors, Mathematics/Physics and Chemistry/Physics, plus Physics minor. These degrees provide solid undergraduate training that enables graduates to choose a variety of future paths: graduate school, computer applications, laboratory and technical careers, and high school teaching.
In addition, we offer a pre-Engineering program that provides the basic beginning course work in most engineering fields. Articulated transfer programs exist with the University of New Hampshire and Clarkson University. We have a very good track record in this area.
Our facilities include several spacious laboratory rooms along with a number of smaller research areas including our Thin Films/Spectrophotometry facility for diverted undergraduate research. We encourage our students to make use of these rooms outside of class time. It is important that our students have a sense of "belonging." therefore, we strongly urge our majors to "hang out" in the physics labs. This allows the faculty and staff to become thoroughly acquainted with our students and provides opportunities for discussions over a wide range of topics. As added inducement to become a "laboratory rat," we note that we have upgraded our network and computer facilities in the laboratory which provide work processing, spreadsheet, graphical analysis, and printing capabilities, along with the superb tool - Interactive Physics along with tutorials. Our cluster is also connected to the internet.
Our philosophy regards experimental work as essential, not only for employment purposes, but also in providing a complete or well-rounded education. We strongly recommend a laboratory experience and to that end we offer investigations in such areas as thin films nuclear spectroscopy, atomic physics, magnetic fields, computer applications, and lasers.
Several students are employed each semester as laboratory assistants; others may partake in the construction of significant demonstration apparatus to be used in our popular "Physics for All Seasons" course. The above experiences provide the fundamentals for those comptemplating high school or middle school teaching. The recently upgraded Teaching Certificate Option (TCO) is a program in which we excel. We believe that our Physics/Chemistry disciplines provide as rich functional background for science teaching as anywhere in northern New England. Job market prospects are good for anyone well prepared in the teaching of science. We now have on board a full-time Science Education faculty member and anticipate introduction of a General Science Major for grades k-6 and middle school.
Our active faculty is involved in regional and national organizations that allow us a close look at many programs in other schools; from this we have concluded that our Physics programs offer many different aspects that many larger schools do not or can not. Any questions? Please call or e-mail by clicking below :
General Science Education Major
Physics Minor