Matthew Baka is a senior physics major at James Madison University. Matthew is from Richmond, VA, and along with pursuing a degree in physics he is minoring in mathematics as well. Matthew was a member of the Marching Royal Dukes for three years at JMU where he played in the Saxophone-Tenor section. He has previously done research with Dr. Melnikov in classical mechanics. Aside from physics and marching band Matthew enjoys playing the piano, and practicing his cup stacking skills. Matthew is being interviewed by Daniel Hirt, a Junior Physics major at JMU.
What are your interests outside of school and physics?
Matthew enjoys speed running video games (specifically Portal 2) and playing the piano in his free time. In addition to this, Matthew enjoys tackling coding projects in his free time, specifically in JavaScript. Matthew’s coding projects have ranged from doing his own version of games such as Flappy Bird, Fruit Ninja, Pong, and Tetris, to creating code to answer a wide variety of questions he’s asked himself, such as a prime number finder, and an evolution simulation.
What are your long-term career goals?
Matthew hopes for his future job to be something related to programming, although he hasn’t dismissed the idea of attending graduate school for physics. In addition to his proficiency in JavaScript Matthew also is proficient in HTML and CSS in which he helped design the webpage for Adoption-Share over a summer long internship. (https://www.adoption-share.com/default.aspx)
What led you to choose your major and what do you like about it?
Matthew chose a major in Physics because of its ability to explain what’s going on around us in the universe. Matthew particularly enjoys the challenge physics presents with its difficult problems, and the process of solving these problems.
What are you most proud of?
Matthew is most proud of his ability to solve abstract math questions which he has encountered spontaneously going through his life. These questions range from solving for the amount of raindrops hitting the windshield as a function of time and velocity to, calculating how much weight is on any given person in a human pyramid. Matthew is also very proud of the coding projects he’s completed, whether they be games, applets, or webpages.
