Hello! My name is Dr. Julie Barringer, aka the Freelance Professor. I’m a Detroit-born scientist, educator, and entrepreneur. I have recently decided to commit full time to helping college students master the content of their technical courses. As a part of that mission, I have started this blog to share my thoughts and insights on higher education. For my inaugural post I would like to share my journey through higher education so you can learn about my background and get to know me just a bit better.

Undergrad

I began my journey in higher education at the University of Michigan Ann Arbor in 2015. I loved math and science, and wanted to make a positive impact in the world. Environmentally sustainable technology fascinated me, and I saw technology as a means to make the world a better place. My mission at the time was to master the skills I needed to pursue a career in the renewable energy sector, such as solar energy, or an adjacent industry such as battery manufacturing or eco-friendly construction.

When I applied for college I was torn over whether to pursue an engineering degree or to dedicate myself to studying physics or chemistry. While studying a pure science would give me strong foundation to pursue a research career, I ultimately couldn’t decide whether I had more passion for physics or chemistry. My desire to pursue both physics and chemistry, coupled with my interest in solving practical problems led me, prefer engineering, and I was admitted to the UofM College of Engineering in the Fall of 2015.

When it came to choosing a major, I had my eyes on four engineering majors: chemical engineering, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, and materials science and engineering.

To my disappointment, chemical engineering didn’t live up to my hopes for a field that incorporated both physics and chemistry. It was too focused on industrial processes for my taste, and its dedication to the knowledge necessary for industrial chemistry left it slightly farther from the skills I felt I needed to pursue the career I wanted.

Mechanical engineering appealed to me since mechanical engineering research extended into the renewable energy and battery fields. It’s reputation as the jack of all trades in engineering also promised a flexibility that appealed to me. However, its curriculum was far from removed from chemistry, lacking the balance I was hoping to find.

Electrical engineering was interesting in its own right. While it is also less chemistry focused than I would have considered ideal, I loved the utility electrical engineering possessed. After all, electrical engineering covered the practical aspect of how renewable energy was created and used. It was deeply related to my career goals, and had it not been for materials science I would almost certainly have pursued electrical engineering.

Despite the appeal of electrical engineering, materials science ended up being a near perfect match for my interests and career goals. It perfectly straddles the boundary between physics and chemistry, allowing me to keep pursuing my passion for both. Material constraints end up being the ultimate limiting factor in a huge fraction of modern technology, meaning that learning materials science gave me an insight into the limits of a large number of technologies including renewable energy. Finally, as perhaps the most science-like engineering field it let me further develop my growing interest scientific research.

As I learned more and more about materials, I became transfixed on scientific research on materials and solid state physics. I decided that I wanted to pursue a career in research and in my senior year I applied for graduate school with the goal of performing my own research on materials for renewable energy. After significant research of the graduate programs and several applications later I accepted an offer from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and I began my PhD in materials science.

Graduate School

My first few years in graduate school were transformative, to the least.

First, I met the man who would end up being my thesis advisor, Dr. Edwin Fohtung. He introduced me to research using an advanced x-ray technique that, while difficult to master, was capable of measuring distortion in materials that were smaller than an atom. I decided to dedicate myself to mastering this technique. At first, I was motivated by the application of the technique to some particular problem related to renewable energy. But over time, I began to realize that the research that really held my interested was related to advanced measurement technology, and my narrow focus on renewable energy began to broaden.

At the same time, I began teaching undergraduate students. While I had mentored students regarding course requirements and such in undergrad, this was my first time working one-on-one or in small groups to help students learn material. My teaching experience early on ignited a passion for teaching that I didn’t know I possessed. There was something fulfilling about helping someone master challenging subjects that I wanted to keep in my life.

In my graduate program, students were funded as either teaching assistants, which would help with teaching courses, or research assistants, which would help with particular research projects or tasks related to lab operations. Most graduate students would teach for 2 or 3 semesters, and would spend the rest of their PhD as research assistants. I was perhaps the only PhD student I knew that volunteered to teach whenever the opportunity arose. By the end of my PhD I had well exceeded what policy would normally consider the maximum number of teaching assignments purely because of my passion for it.

I spent my PhD in this rhythm, teaching most semesters while I worked on the research for my degree in the time around my teaching appointments. I was able to work with a broad range of students on a diverse array of topics in math, science, and engineering, from freshmen level intro courses to advanced topics in materials science. While I twice got an assignment that amounted to little more than grading, most of the semesters I worked directly with students individually or in small groups. Perhaps the most meaningful semester to me was when I was asked to simply be a grader for a course, but students I worked with before still came to me for help. I spent that semester’s office hours working directly with those students every week, and it was a significant influence in my decision to begin this blog and tutoring business.

Post-Doctorate Work

By the end of my PhD, I had an extensive record of both research and teaching. I had several published papers and had received a teaching award for my consistently high-quality work with undergraduate students. I had several options for the next stage of my career, including research, higher education, industry, and several more obscure options. I eventually decided that my passion for education is great enough to dedicate myself full time. I had the decision between pursuing a full-time professorship and working directly with students. After significant self-reflection, I decided that the most fulfilling option was to work directly with students.

I have experience teaching in both a lecture format and in the personal format tutoring provides, and truly nothing compares to the reward of helping students after building an personal relation ship with them. Accordingly, I’m taking on students full time beginning Fall 2025, and I hope you’ll join me on my journey going forward.