Student Squared: Necati Akinci ’25
In this edition of Student Squared, Assistant Features Editor Mira Wilde ’28 talked to Necati Akinci ’25 about his passion for physics, his experience as an international student, and his goal of pursuing educational equity.
Q: What year are you in? What’s your major?
A: I’m a senior and I’m a physics and math major.
Q: Oh! Double major! How’s that going?
A: It’s pretty alright. I mean, I think I mostly had an equal amount of interest in both [earlier] in college. Now [my interest] is [mostly] physics.
Q: And do you know what you want the future to look like for you?
A: Yeah, I will go to grad school to [get] a Ph.D. in physics.
Q: That’s interesting. Where are you from? Tell us a little bit about what home is for you.
A: I’m an international student. I’m from Turkey. And I actually came to the [United States] for college, so it’s my first time here. It’s really good. Yeah, I’m really happy here.
Q: And what was the adjustment like? Are there things from back home that you’re reminded of here?
A: Back home, I lived in about 40, 45 different cities. So I was moving around a lot, so I guess [this] wasn’t as big of a change.
Q: If you don’t mind me asking, why were you moving so often?
A: I’m a military kid.
Q: Gotcha. What is one thing at Amherst that surprised you since coming to college? Are there things that are really foreign or super different that you were surprised about?
A: I came to Amherst because I wanted to have a lot of friends with diverse life experiences and viewpoints. But even then, I was really shocked, in a positive sense, [at] how much I had to learn from people. Like, here I met people from really different experiences, really different majors, and they’re all really well-read, really well-educated.
In my junior year, I studied abroad [at the] University of Oxford. And that’s a really different system, as in I was with physicists every day, all day and we were doing a lot of physics, just talking about physics. It was super fun. But I [like] it so much more here because I [am] friends with people who are really unlike me [and I] really appreciate that about Amherst.
Q: I totally get that. Give us a typical day in your life — what does that look like?
A: Sure. So I guess it depends a bit because right now, I’m done with my thesis. But before, when I was working on my thesis it was more like 12 to 14 hours a day of work, about eight to 10 of which was for my thesis.
But you know, the usual stuff: [Wake] up in the morning, go to your classes. I try to finish my homework, exam prep, etc., whatever, on the weekends. But if I had to do [some more work], [I] just finish it all up before noon. Get lunch from Grab-n-Go, come back to my room, work until dinner. Have dinner with friends for about an hour, maybe 90 minutes, and then work on my thesis until like, 3, 4 a.m.
Q: Wow. And what’s your thesis about? What was that process like?
A: So it was actually a bit lucky because my thesis is pretty close to what I want to do in grad school, too. But I’m basically working on developing how quantum computers, or supercomputers, can be used in theoretical nuclear physics.
Imagine if you’re banging two particles together. I’m trying to see what conditions would result in a lot of particles going out slowly, and what conditions would result in very few particles going out really fast. This is important because currently, nuclear physics is by far the safest and cleanest source of energy that we have. But we really have to be careful in developing nuclear plants and nuclear energy, because if you [don’t] do your calculation as well, that could also result in nuclear weapons. So we’re trying to build safer nuclear power plants.
Q: As someone who knows nothing about STEM, that was a very well put. Do you have a favorite class? If a student is coming here, what class do they need to take?
A: I had a really interesting class that was related to my thesis. [It’s] very subjective, but I guess “Graph Theory” from [Associate] Professor Ivan Contreras in the math department. I’m a big Contreras fan. I think anyone should take whatever class he teaches.
Q: And what was so great about that class?
A: [Contreras is] incredible. I’ve taken three, four classes [with him] at this point, but the class was very much unlike any sort of math that I had seen up to that point. It’s about graphs, [it’s about] drawings, vertices, edges. It doesn’t seem like math at all when you think about math … It opened my view about what math could be.
Q: It seems like you spent a lot of time studying, do you have a favorite study spot?
A: I guess it’s always nice to study in the physics lounge with friends. I like moving around a lot.
Q: That’s good, keeps you on your toes. If you were to trade lives with someone at Amherst for the day, who would it be?
A: Trade lives? Oh, that’s a really good question. Actually, my thesis advisor [Professor of Physics William A. Loinaz], really, because he’s living the life that I’m dreaming about.
Q: And what is that life?
A: He’s working on really interesting problems for like, six hours a day, working out in the gym for two hours a day, and then going home.
Q: If you could only listen to one music artist for a year, who would it be?
A: Led Zeppelin.
Q: Classic. If you had to do a TED talk on something super random or niche, what would it be?
A: Philosophy of theology. I [have really liked] reading and writing about philosophy of politics and theology ever since high school. And I guess if I could give a talk on something, that’s probably what it’d be.
Q: That's interesting because it’s not really aligned with your majors. What other interests do you have that maybe aren’t super math and physics related that you do here?
A: I guess just soccer.
Q: Do you play on the club team here, or the varsity team?
A: I was playing in high school, but not in college.
Q: Yeah, same here. Which professional team do you follow?
A: Galatasaray, a Turkish team. Everyone who reads this should follow them too.
Q: Okay, we’ll definitely put that in there. If you could spend an hour with your future self, what would you ask or what would you tell them?
A: I guess eventually my end goal in all of this, based on [how] I was raised, is to go into academia and do research because I want to work for educational equity in the future. Especially for children in war zones. And if I [were to] go forward [into] the future, I would like to see if I could lead some sort of social justice organization, and hopefully change something in some part of the world.
Q: That’s a great goal. Is there anything else that you want to share? Any life advice you have for the readers of The Amherst Student?
A: Unless they’re absolutely sure about grad school, people should not write a thesis.
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