Advanced laboratory experiences that impact lives: student and faculty perspectives*

How can one best stimulate and nourish those significant laboratory experiences with students that can ``light a fire?''$^{1 }$Students are quick to detect when novel and interesting approaches to apparatus, procedure, and analysis are sought and anticipated, and it can radically change the ``What do you want us to do next?'' atmosphere that sometimes is present in either introductory or advanced labs. While a spirit of research may be difficult or disingenuous to seek for some rather constrained advanced lab exercises, it should surely be laid-out as a desired outcome for more open-ended projects. In optical physics and metrology (Fourier optics, Faraday effect, sonoluminescence, high-speed interferometry, Schlieren, and holographic measurements), I will highlight several engaging examples where student driven experimental physics has blossomed within our advanced labs, and subsequently morale and career choices have been impacted. $^{1}$W. B. Yeats, ``Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.''