Toward the end of his senior year of high school, senior Viktor Rozsa wandered into the Washington and Lee University library during one of his breaks at a scholarship competition. Sitting at one of the tables, one of his competitors, Dominic DiGiovanni, had his nose in Aristotle’s “Nicomachean Ethics.” Rozsa recognized the material, as he also needed to finish some Aristotle reading.
“Dom, by any chance are you participating at Hillsdale’s scholarship weekend next week?”
Four years later, the two have nearly completed their time at Hillsdale College with a bachelor of science degree in physics. They are two of four seniors graduating from the program this May.
To date, Rozsa is choosing between seven doctoral programs to attend next year.
“Hillsdale was not an obvious choice for studying physics,” Rozsa said. “It’s not what Hillsdale is known for and the department is admittedly tiny. But I came here to study physics in the Hillsdale academic environment, not just for physics.”
Rozsa compared most of his classes to an independent study format. On average, no more than three or four students accompany him in a lecture at a time. He said the intimate classroom setting contributes to both his studies and his relationships with peers and professors.
“You can’t get that in a lecture hall in a big university,” Rozsa said.
Senior Iakov Boyko, another graduating physics major, weighed the risk of attending Hillsdale if he was serious about continuing physics into graduate school. Originally, the college’s free-market reputation and status as the home of the Ludwig von Mises library convinced Boyko to attend the college. Despite his interest in economics, Boyko decided to focus on a major in physics.
“Coming to Hillsdale—I knew I was taking a gamble,” Boyko said. “I knew what was needed to continue in physics, like research experience. In retrospect, I think the gamble paid off. I would have said that even if I didn’t get into graduate school”
Boyko spent this past summer researching at the University of Minnesota. Over the course of a number of graduate school conversations, Boyko’s research professor suggested that he look into the University of Chicago’s new engineering program.
Boyko returned to Hillsdale and told his classmates that the University of Chicago was accepting applications for its first engineering program. Rozsa and Boyko applied to the University of Chicago’s Institute of Molecular Engineering in the fall semester. Both have been accepted.
Senior Alex Kane was concerned that his resume without summer research experience would negatively affect his graduate school application results. But Kane’s skepticism was countered by seven offers to doctoral programs, one of which was his top pick, University of California-Davis. He plans to fly back home this upcoming fall to study in the material science and engineering program.
All four men agreed that the small class sizes and long lab hours created unexpected friendships and camaraderie among them. One class in particular bonded the four physics majors: Electronics. Boyko remembers the class as a “spiritual experience.”
With an average of ten hours in lab every week, the four classmates classified one another as physics lounge roommates that semester. Rozsa said it wasn’t unusual if Professor of Physics Ken Hayes left a note on the door of the physics lounge asking security to let his students stay in the lounge to study all night for an exam the following day.
Kane said he isn’t one to pull all-nighters. But he can’t say the same about his classmate.
“Viktor doesn’t get enough sleep,” he said. “I worry about that kid.”
Hayes admitted that he has written notes for students to allow for late night study sessions in the physics lounge.
“They spend many hours a day studying in the lounge,” Hayes said. “Some of them live in there.”
DiGiovanni confessed that he has established a relationship with the cleaning crew throughout the years of late nights in the physics lounge.
“They have a running knowledge of my life,” he said.
Seven doctoral programs have accepted DiGiovanni, including Virginia Tech — ranked among the top 20 mechanical engineering graduate schools according to U.S. News and World Report. But he says he is far from making a decision, although he plans to study mechanical engineering.
The four say they have grown close over the past few years through late nights of studying, lab write-ups, and class time. Although they do not engage in free time together all that often, Rozsa said he stills feels like he knows his classmates.
“We’ve come together as friends so much,” he said. “Because of this crazy physics major thing we have together, these guys know and understand parts of me my other friends never will.”
