Fusor Forums

I am an undergraduate electrical engineering student interested in fusion energy research and plasma physics.

I hope to build a fusor for a chance to learn more about this field and decide if this is something I want to pursue going forward into a career or graduate school.

Good idea to build a fusor but not so good an idea to pursue any career in fusion - it is a rapidly dying field and very few opportunities exist anywhere - especially here in the US. For instance, MIT PhD's with their degree in plasma physics as applied to fusion can't even find viable post doc's anymore, much less real positions - open academic positions don't exist at all in the field. Even in Europe, the field is essentially dead for anyone/everyone not currently involved in ITER, the Stellarator, or select academic positions (all graduate funding in Europe for fusion grad students has been zero out, by the way.) China is in a wait and see mode as is Korea and Japan (with machines but little funding/activity.) While that might change some over the next ten years, until Wendelstein 7-x succeeds (will take close to ten years at current rates), highly unlikely anyone is going to try any more big new projects and with most existing ones either winding down, failing, or just eating up budgets with nothing to show for it, the propects appear very, very poor.

Yeah, maybe the Doug Coulter way is the way to go.

(I'm looking at rural land right now actually)

Hey, welcome. An EE degree is a great choice even with a focus on plasma. There are numerous Paying applications to the science if you keep an open mind about your career goals. Getting comfortable in a machine shop and with a soldering iron are skills that will make you cash. Since all commercial fusion is still theory, you may want to look into Power Distribution engineering. Either way, have fun and fly Safe.