[johnminter]

I think the key to a good exerience obtaining a Ph.D. is the choice of a good advisor. My advisor explained that the process of getting the degree was to teach us to find important problems and learn what we needed to solve them. Typically, that involved collaboration. He also stressed that it was a doctorate in Philosophy even though our department was in the Physical Sciences and Engineering School. That advice served me well as a scientist in a corporate materials analysis group.

Now that I am retired, I still find challenging projects to work on, mainly helping to improve open source electron microanalysis software.

[edge17]

Are there also open source electron microscope designs?

[johnminter]

Not to my knowlege.