I’m currently taking ceramics, an elective at Caltech. It’s held from 7-10pm on Wednesday nights at Polytechnic, a private school across the street from Caltech. Ceramics is very laid back - it’s all about you making whatever you want. You can leave early or show up late if you have a lot of work on a particular night. The instructor gives demonstrations as well. You can also repeat the class or just show up, so essentially this classjust gives you access to a pottery studio and materials for three hours a week. In this post, I will take you on a “tour” of the ceramics studio.
I made these cheese boards in class this week! I can't wait to see how they turn out.
Some pieces waiting to be fired in the kiln.
This is part of the glaze station. You can see the many different glaze colors available!
This is my friend making something on the pottery wheel.
This is what we use to flatten our blocks of clay (for people who are making pieces by hand). People who are using the pottery wheel take their blocks of clay directly to the wheel.
This is the clay station. Whenever you need clay for your piece, you can come here and cut some. There are stamps in the bowl for making patterns on your clay.
Just last week, on an unassuming Thursday, the astro(physics) community got served two humongous cakes at once. Both the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves (NANOGrav) and the IceCube Neutrino Observatory (IceCube) have ground-breaking scientific findings to share with the class!
A friendly desert community where the sun is hot, the mountains are beautiful, and mysterious sounds echo between our walls while we don’t even pretend to sleep.
This summer I had the incredible opportunity to do a 10-week internship at Gilead Sciences in Foster City, CA. For those unfamiliar, Gilead Sciences, Inc. is a research-based biopharmaceutical company focused on the discovery, development, and commercialization of innovative medicines.
