Arturas Vaitulevicius
What drove Arturas Vaitulevicius from California State University San Marcos (CSUSM) is what would bring him back - physics. What kept him there were hands-on research opportunities and a multi-disciplinary approach that would be crucial to identifying the right field and career.
Thinking Physics 201 was too difficult and not relevant to a computer science major, he dropped the class, left CSUSM and returned to Palomar Community College. There he took an electronics course from a professor who also taught Physics and helped him understand the connection between the two subjects.
“I like to do a lot of things - work on cars, build computers, things like that,’” the 28-year-old said. “Before all this happened, physics had the reputation of being just one thing. I hated the idea of just being or doing one thing.”
The challenge was to find an academic path that would match his interests and prepare him for a challenging career. He returned to CSUSM and physics professor Dr. Edward Price addressed his interest in electronics. Price explained to him that Vaitulevicius could major in applied physics with a concentration in applied electronics.
The first clue he was on the right path was that his course schedule was nearly identical to students he knew majoring in electrical engineering at other schools. He was building computers and calculators in his new classes. And he noticed that natural science majors were encouraged to participate in undergraduate research, even if it was outside of their majors. He said he felt better rounded with all those resources in his science tool belt.
But for Vaitulevicius the hammer in that tool belt was undoubtedly undergraduate research. He realized by getting his hands dirty in science he understood and could apply the scientific concepts he learned in class better.
“I was hired as a physics lab assistant and that’s when I knew, ‘This is the place for me,’ and I would spend eight hours in there on something and not even be aware of the time passing,” he said. “I always try to understand how things work and that doesn’t always mean having the answer. If you have the answer, you don’t necessarily understand why it works. And that’s what I got out of research.”
Now, Vaitulevicius is happy in his job as a product engineer at Quantum Design, a company that develops and markets cryostats and other automated temperature and magnetic field testing platforms for materials characterization. It’s not lost on him that most of his colleagues at Quantum Design holding down similar engineer positions have B.S. degrees in physics as well. And it’s also not lost on him that he had to drop a physics class in order to find his way on his terms.
