Why I Chose to Study Quantum Computing

One of the biggest questions facing doctoral students is: what area will you do your research in? Your choices may vary depending on the school and program. At the very least your research area will play a large role on who serves on your committee. I went to Colorado Tech University's Institute for Advance Studies (CTU IAS) where we were given quite a bit of leeway in the area selected. This post is based on my Doctorate experience at Colorado Tech.

Switching topics can lengthen the time to finish your dissertation, so it is best if you can choose one and stick with it. Obviously this cannot always be the case, but this needs to be kept in mind. Another thing that may lengthen the doctoral process is picking a project that is too ambitious or too much work for a dissertation. If you think about it the end result you need to finish is a dissertation that you've successfully defended and had your committee sign off on. There aren't any more points for doing three times as much work. So with that in mind scope should be limited for your dissertation. Your dissertation can be just the first step and the subsequent steps can be areas for future work.

As is probably obvious from this blog, I selected quantum computing programming as my research area. My focus wasn't so narrow at first, I had originally selected the more general topic of quantum computing. As I read more and more I always kept an eye on the software side of things. My physics background was limited, and I had none in quantum computing. So I had enough work cut out on the general quantum computing side of things. My day job was writing software, so I did feel that I had a perspective that others in the field might not have. Thus my choice evolved into quantum computer programming as I progressed through the literature.

As the tittle of this post says, why quantum computing? Here is a list of the motivating reasons behind the reason I selected quantum computer programming (in no particular order, and not formalized when I did the selection):

1. Interesting subject. I wanted to pick something I was truly interested in. Without the passion for the subject I wouldn't have been able to sacrifice weekends, evenings, time with friends and family, etc. It was the true interest in the subject that allowed me to spend so much time on it.
2. Bleeding edge. I wanted to pick something bleeding edge in computer science, as the body of work is much less- which means there are more places to select from for doctoral work. I figured since quantum computers were probably 15+ years out when I started (2006), this met the criteria. I suppose this could also be listed as selection of an "un-matured" area in Computer Science.
   
3. Ground breaking area. Since quantum computers operate fundamentally different than classical (existing) computers this pretty much sealed the deal on this one. How much more ground breaking can you get then something that works differently than every other computer built?
4. "Wow" factor. While it shouldn't really be listed as a criteria for selection of a research area if you want to be formal, it didn't hurt. As any doctoral student is at various points in the process, I became frustrated and stumped. I bring this point up because I was able to sit back and say to myself, "hey this is programming photons (or electrons, etc), this is cool stuff!" I don't think I would've been able to give myself that motivating kick quite as much if I had selected another subject area.

So those were my reasons for selecting quantum computing as a research area. However, the first two are good advice for any doctoral student: pick something you love and pick something years down the road.