My Journey as a Computational Materials Scientist
From Not Knowing Linux to Loving What I Do When I finished my master’s degree, I did not have a clear plan. I spent almost six months at home waiting for a PhD call. Those months were uncertain and, honestly, frustrating. I wanted to do research, but I did not know when or where that journey would begin. Then one day, I received a call from my future PhD supervisor. He invited me to join his group, and I said yes almost immediately. During the interview, I mentioned that I wanted to join an experimental condensed matter physics group because that's where I had done my master’s project. But when he asked whether I was open to computational condensed matter physics, I had no idea what that meant. Still, I said yes. My thinking was simple: I wanted to work in condensed matter physics, and I was willing to learn whatever came next. On my first day, my supervisor asked me, “Do you know Linux?” I said no. He replied, “I don’t know how you are going to do a PhD in computational condense...
