Grad School

It's time to announce it, I suppose: I've withdrawn from the Ph. D. program in Mathematics.

Don't worry, I feel good about it. I might return one day, but for now, I'm ready to stop being a student for a tiny bit.

This decision slowly came to me over the winter break. During the break, I took two weeks off from thinking about mathematics. I was happier during the break than I had been in as long as I could remember. Studying math had become a very large source of stress in my life.

Let me give you some history. I started grad school in September 2007. The math department hopes you'll complete your first round of exams within two years, one year ideally. I haven't. I took two tests, failed them both. I know why I failed, but I just didn't ever seem to get good enough to fill in the gaps that caused me to fail.

This past fall, someone finally told me "you need to know real analysis." I really hadn't studied it. I even prided myself in avoiding it during my undergraduate classes. So I've been at a serious disadvantage. In October, I resolved to start teaching it to myself. But all that did was bring about more stress. It was more that I needed to study, in addition to the classes I was taking and the classes I was learning. I still believe I could do it if I wanted to. But I don't want to kill myself over it anymore.

So here's where I am now. I will still be teaching at New York City College of Technology, at least for Spring 2010. I'm in the process of looking for a second job. And I'm happy.

Studying Math

Grad school has been very difficult. I'm constantly learning how to "be" a mathematician.

I'll be frank, undergraduate classes were simple. Most of the work required was just getting the hang of whatever you were doing. This worked fabulously back at the University of Minnesota, Duluth. Especially in the philosophy program. I'd skim/read the material, doing my best to get the general impression. Then, I'd attend class and the professor would cement the general ideas in my mind. The details mattered only every once in a while. In fact, this process even worked backwards: I could attend class, get the general idea from the professor, then read the book and I'd be ready for an exam.

It doesn't work that way now. No matter how many times I read through a chapter, even if I use different books to get many different angles on a subject, it isn't enough. It's still difficult to follow lectures. I still have trouble completing the homework.

Today, I finally had the courage to ask one of my professors for advice. He said you've got to read a sentence, set the book aside, then play with it.

For example, here's the first sentence from Set Theory (Jech 2002).

Intuitively, a set is a collection of all elements that satisfy a certain given property.

Like most definitions in mathematics, I'd basically try to memorize it, and that's not necessarily wrong. But according to my professor, you've got to start testing the definition out. "What kind of property would work?" you might ask. "What about the property 'numbers less than 5'?" So, that means a set would be the numbers 0, 1, 2, 3, and 4. "Is that okay? Are numbers 'elements'?" I'm supposed to ask. "What if the property was not being equal to itself?" No number (or anything in the universe, for that matter) isn't equal to itself, so that would be an empty collection.

Of course this is the obvious thing to do. But it's hard in practice to do it. It's painful to stop reading a book every sentence, put the book aside and actually think. It reminds me of the saying "You can send them to college, but you can't make them think."

I suppose studying math is like exercising. Watching, listening and reading other people do mathematics is like watching someone on a treadmill. You don't gain anything unless you're on the treadmill yourself.

I sure hope I get the hang of it. I'm very proud of where I am and I want follow the path in front of me. It's just strange having to admit that I still need to improve my studying habits.

Grad School Report

Ofda.

Grad school is in full swing. I've got the feeling I could study 16 hours a day and still not get everything I want to done. I suppose that's what I'm supposed to be feeling.

Yesterday, I learned something about graduate school professors: they have much less responsibility to the student. This isn't to say they don't care. But, here's a quote from one of my professors last night:

"I guess this is the point the professor tells the class it makes sense to him and moves on."

The class had been working on a complicated proof and everyone sat silently, trying to write as much down as they could. I was pretty lost. The professor was talking out what was happening, trying to make sure he had it right.

He finally nodded his head, told us the above quote, and proceeded to erase the other half of the board and continue lecturing.

Well, some of my other professors make a lot of sense now. Viewed in the light of this lower burdon, perhaps some of my other professors aren't as bad as I thought they might be.

I don't agree with the notion that it isn't the responsibility of the professor to make the students understand. I certainly cover the same material two, three, or even more times to make sure my students have a firm grasp.

I do understand this teaching philosophy, though. There is only so much a professor can explain within the class period, and a graduate student does need to spend a lot of time going through it on his or her own.

Well, I went to the library and grabbed two more books. I'll be spending the next few hours trying to figure it out. So it goes, I suppose.

Monday Morning

Alicia just went out the door, and it's 7am. I can't believe I've been getting up at 6am every morning (minus the weekends, of course). But it feels great. I'm already working, and there won't be any regrets today.

Last week feels like a phantom. I had Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday off, and I feel as if I squandered them. I shouldn't feel that way, as I finally gave the apartment a good cleaning that was needed. I also corrected exams and relaxed. I guess I'm sorry to see it go.

The biggest disappointment was waking up on Monday to discover a cold. It was mostly gone by Thursday, and it is just barely lingering now. I can certainly blame my lazy week on the cold, but that doesn't make me feel any better. Oh well, it feels good to wake up healthy again.

But even if I'm not proud of last week, this week can certainly be redemption: I've got Wednesday and Thursday off. I know, I know, I can't believe how much time I've got off either. I've even got next week Monday off as well. Being a student is so lazy.

Rosh Hashanah

Happy Rosh Hashanah, everyone.

No, I'm not Jewish, but I'm off of school! I've got Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday off this week, Wednesday, Thursday off next week, and Tuesday off the week after that. Follow that?

What it comes down to is that I've got a lot of class off. Wednesday is my big study day at the Graduate Center, so two consecutive Wednesdays off is huge for me. I needed it. I've got a lot of stuff to do, and this is a great opportunity to get it done while relaxing.

But, wouldn't you know it, I caught a cold on Sunday. Not to worry, it is very light. It was a small sore throat yesterday, and it has just been the sniffles today. It is so minor that I got a lot of errands done in Manhattan today. So that is great.

Tomorrow, I'm staying in and studying more. I've also got some homework to finish correcting, so the time will be well used.

School is in Full Swing

Whoa! Guess time just got away from me.

I've been aware of the common stereotype that graduate students are stressed, no life, shut-ins that don't have time for anything. I'd even heard of mathematics students having to schedule casual down time, or else they'd not do it. Last year, I kinda felt that way. I had a decent amount of homework, and I had things to keep me busy, but I never felt an overwhelming pressure that eats up all my time, even Saturday nights.

Until about the third week of class this year.

I've got this giant amount of work I want to do. Last year, I had homework to finish, and that was about it. But now, wow. There doesn't seem to be enough hours in the week.

Perhaps this is how I should have been last year. But it didn't feel this way before.

The good news is that it feels a lot better. Last year, I felt like I knew nothing and was going to fail out of grad school. Now, I can see all the new first years from a different perspective. I can see that more than half of the students I met in the first year are no longer here. Things make sense that didn't previously, and I'm getting things done.

In short, the overwhelming feeling that I am stupid has diminished. I still feel stupid, but now I feel like I can do something about it. Which is why I have been studying so much.

I've got a few more things to say, but I'll split them up into different blog posts to avoid one long sputtering post.

Hello!

It's Friday night!

My school semester began Wednesday, with several classes. Wednesday's are my big day. But already it started going well. And has continued through today. Where I normally keep an eye on the clock, this semester I've been upset when class ended.

I'll elaborate more later, but things are going good. Alicia and I are going to grab some food for now.

Sorry about the lack of updates!

Schools out for the summer

I finished teaching today!

I've been teaching a summer session of Developmental Mathematics (read: pre-college math). It met Monday - Thursday, 8:30 to 12:15ish. It has been all prep for the final and the ACT Compass exam, an exam students must pass to enter college math. Thus, all my students had taken the ACT Compass exam and failed it, meaning this course was prep work for it.

I started out with 18 students and it dropped down to 16 by the end. Of those 16 students who completed the class, three passed.

Yes, three. Today I failed 13 students. Ouch.

I talked to the head of the math department, as I was concerned. He said it was mostly the luck of the draw. He personally had taught a class where only one person passed. Still, I've been upset today. I feel like I failed as a professor.

I know that isn't true. I know I did as much as I could. Because I corrected the final exams, I know that the mistakes made were covered. Several mistakes made I specifically warned the students that "Students always make these mistakes. Tests will ask you this. Don't be one of those students!" For instance:

-1 - 6

The answer is -7. Most of my students thought it was 5 or -5.

Oh well. I did pass three students. They did a great job, and I am sure they'll pass the ACT now. As for me, I'm just going to leave it behind and relax in Minnesota this weekend.

Hacker Conference

Last weekend (July 18, 19 and 20th) I attended The Last H.O.P.E., a hacker conference here in New York put on by the magazine 2600, the Hacker Quarterly. H.O.P.E. stands for Hackers on Planet Earth.

What's a hacker conference about? Well, this one was about the hacker community, security, and general internet connectivity. Plus a lot of computer geeks.

Really, I don't consider myself a hacker. I could understand the presentations, but it just isn't my cup of tea. I don't really want to spend a lot of time learning computer security systems, coding, etc. I'd have stayed as a Computer Science major if that was the case.

But this conference was exactly the kind of thing that made me excited to live in New York. You just don't see these happening much in the Twin Cities.

Ultimately, I fluctuated between really enjoying it and being a bit bothered by it. Given that it was a conference made up of 80% guys between 15-30 that pride themselves on their ability to stay indoors, body odor was a problem sometimes. But there was some interesting stuff. And great speakers!

Here's some tidbits:

The ID card you got to grant you permission to the conference areas was a white circuit board as pictured below:

The backside had a small battery. It was a functioning tracking device. Basically, it could tell where I was when I was within the conference areas. I was able to log in to the conference website and see where I currently was, where I had been, what talks I had attended, where others who registered were. Near the big conference rooms, there was a screen displaying the current data:

Theoretically, I'm one of those red dots. If there weren't so many dots, mine would have read 3225, which was the id number. It was pretty cool, as the tag flashed red every five seconds or so as it sent out a signal.

There were talks from about 10am until midnight Friday, Saturday and Sunday (talks ended at 7pm). As you can see from the empty conference room below, attendance was at capacity. The conference rooms were named after famous Computer Scientists, the one below is named Turing:

I didn't take the picture of the crowd, so theoretically you can see me in there somewhere (but don't look too hard. I knew where I was and I couldn't find myself). This talk was made during Steven Levy's talk. Levy is a technology writer who writes for Newsweek. He also wrote the book "Hackers" back in 1980ish.

Other cool speakers include Lazlow (who co-wrote GTAIV and has done radio work for many of the previous other Grand Theft Auto video games), Adam Savage from Mythbusters, and the guy who was the consultant for Sneakers (early 90's spy movie with Robert Redford).

I learned about safe cracking, lock picking, telephones, internet testing, and a ton of other things technology related. Speaking of lock picks, here's the beginner set I bought:

Alicia and I have both gotten a tiny luggage lock, but that's it. Neither of us has managed to get the master lock pictured. It really feels like an art. You use the S shaped thing to spin the lock like a key would. Then, while providing torque (turning it), you use the blue handled tools to push the "pins" into the lock. When you first start, it feels easy. But then you have trouble getting the pins right. It just doesn't wanna work.

All in all, the hacker conference was great for getting out of the house and doing something. I don't go to many bars, and I'm kind of a bum about seeing music shows. This made me feel like I've gotten something out of living here. Huzzah!

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Footnote: I've usually only posted pictures I personally took so that copyright issues weren't a problem. I couldn't find much in the way of credits or limitations on some of the photos in this post, so I've included links to their original source. Just click the picture for credits. If you own the rights to any of these photos and do not want me using them here, feel free to email me. You can find my email at the top right under "about me."