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 Posted: Tue Jun 23, 2009 7:29 pm
I now have a Bachelor's. I'm not proud of it or my thesis. I've decided that abstract math and physics are either too hard for me when I'm pessimistic about myself and not worthy of further pursuit when I'm optimistic. I have no idea what I want to do, but at least the last 4 years have shown me what I'm not suited for.
I may or may not be coming back, so congrats to you both and see you around.
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Posted: Wed Jun 24, 2009 2:18 pm
Congratulations to you, Dragon, and I'll miss you if you leave.
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Posted: Wed Jun 24, 2009 10:56 pm
Swordmaster Dragon I now have a Bachelor's. I'm not proud of it or my thesis. I've decided that abstract math and physics are either too hard for me when I'm pessimistic about myself and not worthy of further pursuit when I'm optimistic. I have no idea what I want to do, but at least the last 4 years have shown me what I'm not suited for. I may or may not be coming back, so congrats to you both and see you around. I felt the same way about (and after) my doctoral dissertation. You may be right but... you also may be wrong. I can only speak for myself, but now that a few years have passed and I've kept going through old material I discovered that I actually *do* get it (some of it anyway-- I'm still patching holes)-- but I needed more time to assimilate and collect background knowledge than my program provided. I was accustomed to being the best in just about whatever I did, and when I stopped being the best (in fact, when I fell below my average classmates) I felt like a failure.... Maybe that's affecting how you feel, maybe not. No matter whether you can contribute to the community directly or not (and you may surprise youself and discover that you can), If you have ever felt a sense of joy or giddiness from the contemplation of a particularly subtle proof then I think you should still play around with math every now and again. In the end, of course, you must do what is correct for you, but I'll certainly miss it if you don't pop in occasionally and say hi. Good luck. I hope whatever you decide leads to greater happiness.
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Posted: Mon Aug 24, 2009 7:28 pm
Takin' my prelim exam tomorrow. It's basically like the quals, to see if you're smart enough to go for a PhD, but they don't teach you anything first and you can sort of still go for a PhD if you don't get great results.
Anyway, that's tomorrow for me. By the time I see any words of encouragement from you guys, it'll be too late for me. But don't let that stop you.
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Posted: Wed Aug 26, 2009 4:27 pm
Layra-chan Takin' my prelim exam tomorrow. It's basically like the quals, to see if you're smart enough to go for a PhD, but they don't teach you anything first and you can sort of still go for a PhD if you don't get great results. Anyway, that's tomorrow for me. By the time I see any words of encouragement from you guys, it'll be too late for me. But don't let that stop you. Prelims, quals, GREs... I'll never get my head around it. How did it go? A retroactive "good luck" btw.
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Posted: Wed Aug 26, 2009 5:42 pm
It was easy, the problem thus being that everyone thought so and therefore the passing grade will be pretty high. I really hope it doesn't come down to details because I'm not good at those; I got the right answers, I'm sure of it, but there are always those key terms that the graders are looking for and I'm not so certain that I mentioned all the little nit-picky bits that separate a perfect from an almost-perfect.
I find out tomorrow how I did.
So short story long:
The GREs test whether the university should let you in. The quals test whether, having gotten in, you are smart enough to go for a PhD or whether you'll have to settle for a master's. This prelim test is to determine whether I can go straight into the PhD level first-year courses or whether I have to do some master's-level courses first, and then move on to the PhD level stuff.
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Posted: Wed Aug 26, 2009 6:03 pm
After it bothering me for years (but not enough for me to do anything about it), I've finally found the name for it: Pontryagin duality, which generalizes the Fourier transform. I remember that when I first saw it, I thought it was the coolest thing in the world (I still think it's pretty frickin' cool) because it explained why for functions of the reals, the domain and the transform domain were the same, but for periodic functions the transform domain was different.
And looking at it in terms of Pontryagin duality, it makes perfect sense why the transform should work. Sure, I can do all the summing and bounding for the Fourier transform, but with Pontryagin duality it appears so obvious.
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Posted: Wed Aug 26, 2009 6:41 pm
Layra-chan So short story long: The GREs test whether the university should let you in. The quals test whether, having gotten in, you are smart enough to go for a PhD or whether you'll have to settle for a master's. This prelim test is to determine whether I can go straight into the PhD level first-year courses or whether I have to do some master's-level courses first, and then move on to the PhD level stuff. heh, the structure here amounts to little more than waving you in and giving you the boot if you fall below standards. If you manage to finish 2nd year but fall below PhD standards, you usually get a masters (assuming you can scrape together a thesis).
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Posted: Thu Aug 27, 2009 2:28 pm
There is that as well, but that is in addition to all these tests.
Anyway, I passed, will be taking PhD level courses, and will see what happens next.
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Posted: Sat Sep 05, 2009 6:09 am
Layra-chan Takin' my prelim exam tomorrow. It's basically like the quals, to see if you're smart enough to go for a PhD, but they don't teach you anything first and you can sort of still go for a PhD if you don't get great results. Anyway, that's tomorrow for me. By the time I see any words of encouragement from you guys, it'll be too late for me. But don't let that stop you. Good luck AND congratulations!
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Posted: Wed Sep 09, 2009 6:46 pm
Oh god algebra is hard! By which I mean I hate counting arguments. Also, this is the most hilariously awesome idea I've seen in a long time. If I knew more biology I'd totally start writing this myself.
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Posted: Tue Sep 15, 2009 7:53 pm
I never post on Gaia anymore.
Classes have me busy busy busy.
I really should take a lighter course load next semester.
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Posted: Wed Sep 23, 2009 12:03 pm
I just spent 3 1/2 hrs on a non stop train to give a presentation and I found out, mid journey, that the whole day was cancelled.
talk2hand
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Posted: Wed Sep 23, 2009 2:15 pm
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Posted: Mon Oct 05, 2009 4:27 am
I have a newfound respect for chemists. The post-Hartree-Fock era of quantum chemistry is no joke.
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