My intention was to make my next post (i.e., this post) be some cool tidbits I’ve been pondering concerning the Gamma function (see here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma_function), but alas, I’m simply too tired to squeeze that one in for today. I’ll try to do some of that later today – you know, when I’m not galavanting around Tallahassee, attempting to establish residency status. But that’s neither here nor there.
Instead, I’ll update about the most recent departmental things that have gone on, most notable of which was the first day of orientation.
The first day of orientation happened yesterday (as it’s 2:41 am now) from 10:45am until…. I wasn’t really sure what to expect, and as is usual in such situations, I was a little uneasy about being around a whole slew of new people, jumping through hoops, etc. etc. I can honestly say, though, that I was pleasantly surprised.
I woke up and saw that it was raining. Surprisingly, rain has been the ongoing theme since arriving here in Tallahassee, but we were fortunate to wake up early, leave early, and arrive with a few minutes to spare. At 10:45, we met Torrece – the Graduate Admissions Coordinator – to receive info packets. Not long after (about 11-ish), we went to “the big classroom” (LOV 101, which seats 120 students) for some general information, etc. During this, we got to “meet” (in actuality, we got to see from afar) some of the faculty who were “important for us to know,” and after much ado about nothing (or so it seemed), we went upstairs for lunch.
Lunch began at noon. It was a quaint setup with a light meal, and by way of how the setup was designed (or so I suspect), we were put right in the middle of forced socialization. As is often the case in such situations, the information I heard was largely forgotten afterwards, but what I did take away from the session is that most of the new admits were pretty nice folks. That’s always a plus.
After lunch, we dealt with a small scheduling mishap, after which we split up by area of study (pure, applied, bio and financial math are the options here) to register for our first semester of classes. During the pure math registration, I got to meet the advisor (Dr. van Hoeij) for the very first time; I also got the first WTF? You’re a Ph.D. student in what now, trying to take which classes for what? Say huh? moment of the semester when I asked Dr. van Hoeij about a scheduling quirk stemming from my having registered for two early qualifiers.
Those are always pretty funny.
Apparently, because I’m signed up for two qualifiers, I have to sign up for two additional “backup” classes in addition to the mandatory three everyone has to take. That means that for the first week or two of the semester, I’ll be devoting myself to five graduate math courses (for which I may or may not be qualified), in addition to teaching and lesson planning and whatever else may be required. I guess there’s no easing back into academia for me, eh?
Anyway, this is my current schedule as it stands now. Changes will be made later this semster:
Measure and Integration I, MWF, 11:15am – 12:05pm
Topology I, MWF, 12:20pm – 1:10pm
Abstract Algebra I, MWF, 1:25pm – 2:15pm
Complex Variables I, MWF, 2:30pm – 3:20pm
Groups, Rings, and Vector Spaces I, TR, 11:00pm – 12:15pm
I know you’re jealous of my Mondays/Wednesdays/Fridays, right? 😛
Anyway…after registering for classes, we were ordered to go to some building or other (I still don’t remember the name of it) to do “other stuff.” The other stuff was us getting assigned twelve different identifying pieces of information, having our pictures taken for the website, setting up email forwarding, etc; of course, all this stuff (it took about an hour, an hour fifteen total) happened after wandering around – still in the rain – trying to find some building I’d never been to before. The good news was that I finished everything (at 3:15pm) before I was even scheduled to start “other stuff” training (3:30pm), so I guess it wasn’t all bad.
Honestly, it was a little more underwhelming than I’d expected it to be. As I said previously, later today is going to involve me trying to remedy some domicile information, and then the rest of the week is eaten up with more registration stuff. The bad news about that is that my Saturday Sunday qualifier in Complex Analysis isn’t going to get nearly the last minute cramming it ought to; the good news? I’m not really sure yet. 😛
Stay tuned for some Gamma function nonsense, and maybe some other interesting tidbits as the journey towards academic greatness continues.