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monologues of a mathematician: third year

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Original post by MajorFader
Hellooo!!!

Nice to see you back!

Hope you’re keeping safe in Newcastle, York has rising cases but I heard your area is insane.

Pure and Mechanics is the way to go (I’ve chosen them two for this year as well), I’ve always been bad at probability. Ever since S1, statistics and I I’ve never been friends lol. I’d love to see how you find Topology as I’m planning to do that module for third year.

I admire people doing the MMath honestly...


yeah thankfully able to stay safe despite the city falling apart and me regularly going to work :eek: hopefully the cases start to fall soon as it is predominantly freshers driving the cases up (understandably)

yeah stats bad lol. after doing bayesian in second year i knew i wanted to never do stats again :colondollar: i've never liked it but now i'm bad at it too. i'm sort of looking forward to topology but it's a semester 2 module so you'll have to wait a while to see how i find it :tongue:

4th year is scary but it's still a year away so i'm gonna keep forgetting about it lol

Original post by laurawatt
:party:
Hope you have a fab week! :lovehug:


thanks, you too! :hugs:

Original post by RDKGames
Applied all the way!
(No bias here!)

Personally I walked into my course preferring Pure but after I realised how abstract it gets I just lost interest. Instead I found interest in Applied side where I can pin down and study a physical phenomenon using mathematics that I enjoyed. Although (somewhat ironically) I might end up running some tutorials for real analysis as a new doctoral researcher in Applied.


i've always been into applied(/mechanics when i was doing a levels) so it's only been since getting to uni i've realised pure is actually pretty cool, but it's so much harder so i'd have to spend way longer trying to make sense of it all as you say it's so abstract at times. i think i'm more interested in analysis than say algebra so i'll see how 3rd year goes :tongue:

Original post by The_Lonely_Goatherd
Only just realised this thread exists! Am so sorry :getmecoat:

Posting to subscribe. Please add me to the tag list :h:


Original post by furryface12
Oohh! Tag please :puppyeyes:


Original post by theJoyfulGeek
Please could I also have a tag? Thanks!


will add you all :smile:

Original post by gcsemusicsucks
Ahhh good to see you back (I haven't logged onto TSR in months so looks like I have perfect timing :gah:) Please tag me!! :biggrin:
Group theory, graphs and symmetry sounds like a heaven module to me :love: Then again I am veeery biased considering I've been staying away from all things applied for a while now :tongue: Though I'm doing complex analysis this semester so I guess that's kinda applied :lol:
All the best for this year!! :jumphug:


will do! it's actually one i'm least looking forward to but mainly because of one of the lecturers, i had her in first year and she wasn't great lol. graphs sounds fun though i've always been quite into them so hopefully that'll save it :tongue: oh god applied is so fun though!! complex analysis is very pure :lol: but it was my fave module in second year so i'm sure you'll love it
thanks, you too!! :hugs:
Urgh about your personal tutor, sounds like they need a good kicking :nothing: Maybe email them and be like, "heyyyyyyyyyyy, long time no speak :colonhash: "?

Sorry to hear that things got scaled up at uni, re: coronavirus tier, and that you can't be in a lecture hall :frown:

Loads of hugs for you, lovely :hugs:
Original post by The_Lonely_Goatherd
Urgh about your personal tutor, sounds like they need a good kicking :nothing: Maybe email them and be like, "heyyyyyyyyyyy, long time no speak :colonhash: "?

Sorry to hear that things got scaled up at uni, re: coronavirus tier, and that you can't be in a lecture hall :frown:

Loads of hugs for you, lovely :hugs:


i asked the stage 3 senior tutor in our induction meeting this morning and he's gonna chase it up for me :smile: i'm not the only one apparently!!

yeah it's sad but definitely for the best. they're gonna review it in a couple weeks time so hopefully soon it'll be safe enough to go in occasionally

thank you :hugs:
Reply 23
So the team that had a member of the MathSoc committee won, hmm seems rigged :unimpressed:

May the modules be what you hoped for!
Original post by Sinnoh
So the team that had a member of the MathSoc committee won, hmm seems rigged :unimpressed:

May the modules be what you hoped for!


every team did, we were the quizmasters lol it was done in breakout rooms :lol:

thanks!
Original post by niamhdoesmaths
will do! it's actually one i'm least looking forward to but mainly because of one of the lecturers, i had her in first year and she wasn't great lol. graphs sounds fun though i've always been quite into them so hopefully that'll save it :tongue: oh god applied is so fun though!! complex analysis is very pure :lol: but it was my fave module in second year so i'm sure you'll love it
thanks, you too!! :hugs:


prsom! ahh yeah the lecturer does make the world of a difference, fingers crossed she's better this year :crossedf: I've been doing a graph theory module this semester and it's a lot of fun because it reminds me of those puzzles you usually find in those puzzle books :lol: but there are so many definitions and some of the proofs can get super technical so I also find it a bit challenging :colondollar: ahhh I wish I could agree but I really can't do applied :lol: noooo complex analysis is very applied :rofl: tbf it's the strangest mix of pure and applied ever and totally different to anything I've done before - we've been doing contour integration so far which has been ok (aside from the fact that I haven't done calculus in ages so I've forgotten how to integrate :hide:) but just browsing the lecture notes it looks like it's gonna get progressively worse :lol:
:woo:

So pleased to see this - please can I be tagged again?

Look forward to your updates :jumphug:
Original post by gcsemusicsucks
prsom! ahh yeah the lecturer does make the world of a difference, fingers crossed she's better this year :crossedf: I've been doing a graph theory module this semester and it's a lot of fun because it reminds me of those puzzles you usually find in those puzzle books :lol: but there are so many definitions and some of the proofs can get super technical so I also find it a bit challenging :colondollar: ahhh I wish I could agree but I really can't do applied :lol: noooo complex analysis is very applied :rofl: tbf it's the strangest mix of pure and applied ever and totally different to anything I've done before - we've been doing contour integration so far which has been ok (aside from the fact that I haven't done calculus in ages so I've forgotten how to integrate :hide:) but just browsing the lecture notes it looks like it's gonna get progressively worse :lol:


i hope so but i'm not optimistic :colondollar: ah i do a graphs module in semester 2 and i'm actually quite looking forward to it! yeah pure is very proof heavy which i don't like but actually understanding stuff is very satisfying i find. it can be used in applied contexts but it's definitely pure :tongue: i loved contour integration!! hopefully it doesn't get too hard :hide:
Original post by brainzistheword
:woo:

So pleased to see this - please can I be tagged again?

Look forward to your updates :jumphug:


of course! i forgot to do one last night :facepalm:
update #2, monday 19th october 2020
not even started yet and already overwhelmed lol

morning guys, i forgot to post last night so here we are bright and early cos i have a live tutorial at half 9 :yawn:

induction week stuff
had the introductory lecture last monday which was a little pointless but i'm still glad i went. nothing was really new, it was just telling us about how the year is gonna work with everything being online for the foreseeable.

then on wednesday i had a group meeting with my personal tutor which was nice, we were all on mute so it was a very "led" meeting but was still good to be there. i emailed and asked for a 1-1 meeting afterwards and still haven't heard back so i think a follow-up email is on the cards...

uni stuff
mas3710 group theory - i watched lecture 1.1, didn't write anything down but it was essentially just motivation for the course, not much to actually learn, just to understand the basic ideas and things we'll cover in the module. regardless i still didn't understand any of it so i definitely need to catch up with the rest of the week's lectures

mas3711 linear analysis - we were told we needed to watch 2 lectures before this morning on sections 1 and 2, section 1 is an introduction/motivation one and then section 2 is on vector spaces, very much building on what we did in linear algebra in second year but instead of being confined to finite-dimensional vector spaces we can now start looking at infinite-dimensional ones which is funky. i watched the 1st video and was meant to watch the second one this morning but i slept in so that didn't end up happening :facepalm: luckily i've got a decent understanding of vector spaces so hopefully i'll be alright for the tutorial in 20 minutes lol

mas3712 matrix analysis - literally haven't done anything for this yet oops

mas3810 methods for differential equations - also haven't done anything yet

mas3811 quantum mechanics - haven't done anything yet but i have a live session at 5pm so i'm gonna watch this week's lectures in advance of that. i watched the first minute or so of the intro video but that was only to see if there were any important details in it which there weren't. so i'll watch the whole thing later today

mas3812 advanced fluid dynamics - haven't done anything for this yet but i'm excited to. the lecturer seems fab (never had him before), he's set up a discussion board on canvas and the first thing he's said is about his favourite fluids and he's asked for ours too :lol: i think i'm gonna love this module, i loved second year fluids and i did get 99% in that exam so hopefully this module just builds on that and i can smash it again :biggrin:

work stuff
again not much to say, still down to my 2 shifts a week and they're going alright. curious how i'll cope when uni starts getting intense but i'll cross that bridge when i get to it lol. i’m grateful we've officially started uni again cos they can't call me in anymore as i'm always busy

mathsoc stuff
we had our first social of the year on thursday! it was virtual bingo and it was a massive success :biggrin: everyone seemed to have a great time and the prizewinners were very happy with their winnings (one person won 3 prizes! :shock:) so we're buzzing. our next social is tomorrow but ngl i'm not optimistic about it, i don't think it's been planned as well and we've barely "sold" any tickets yet (they're free)

we're having a committee meeting this thursday so god knows what's coming in that. last week a few of us met with the school's mathsoc staff rep to discuss what the school can do for us which was very productive, hopefully we can see some good things come of that :smile:

other society stuff
so i rejoined dance lol, i'm still only doing tap cos it's all online and if i'm gonna try something new i want it to be in person. so jazz will have to wait until next year :tongue: the comp audition deadline is this saturday but i don't think i'm gonna do it, i wouldn't make it onto the team anyway but in the off chance i did, getting time off work for the comps would be a nightmare and that's if i can even go to the comp classes anyway as they're at weekends. there's a social on sunday i might go to but i'm not sure :erm:

RAG had their social on wednesday and it was absolutely amazing, the person who ran it absolutely smashed it and it was a fab event. we didn't win or even come close but it was infuriatingly fun :tongue: no idea when the next social is but i'm looking forward to it regardless!

other stuff idk
yesterday i spent basically the whole day planning my time for the week, it was super stressful and i still have no idea what i'm doing. with so much of our learning being self-directed now (no timetabled lectures or anything) i'm really struggling with organising myself. i think it'll just take a couple of weeks to settle in but still, i'm stressing badly and we've not even started term yet lol. i need to get a grip ahaha

anyway yeah i have a tutorial v soon and need a coffee so i'm gonna end this here
lemme know if you wanna be added to the tag list n stuff
see u next week
niamh x

tags

glad to hear the mathsoc social went really well :hugs:
hope the tutorial goes well!
Reply 30
Infinite vector spaces are easier because you never have to write them down in full :ahee:

Not that I know any group theory, but I've heard there's quite a leap of intuition to make in understanding it, akin to when numbers change from representing quantities of things to just the more abstract concept of "a number". I'm just repeating what 3Blue1Brown said though :redface:
YAY for dance! :rave: A shame that jazz will have to wait 'til next year :frown:

Half 9 tutorials should not be a thing :nope:

My favourite fluid is mango lassi, but am guessing those are not the kinda fluids you mean :colondollar:

Much love, lovely :penguinhug:
Thanks for the update - I didn't get a notification ...
Hoping you manage to organise yourself - it sounds tricky :hugs:
Could you pick a module to work on each day, or half day? Even if that's just to do the lectures for then assignments can go whenever. You'll get there :smile: glad the socials went well!
I’m doing group theory this year too lol.


I didn’t get a notification for some reason, but I got one last week. 🤔
update #3, monday 26th october 2020
one of the most stressful weeks of my life

morning everyone, up bright and early once again for my 9:30 zoom session :burnout:. a hell of a lot has happened in the space of just one week so there's loads to update you on. so i guess i'll just get started

uni stuff
mas3710 group theory - had a problems class on zoom on wednesday but i really wasn't feeling it so watched from my bed with my camera off. i didn't write anything down, i didn't have a single clue what was going on but i also hadn't done any of the lectures yet bar the introductory one so it's no wonder. i really really don't like the lecturer for this at all. yesterday i decided to plough through the lectures for week 1 and got them all done eventually, they were on permutation groups and stuff to do with that, not that interesting but i think i understand most of it so far so it could be worse

mas3711 linear analysis - had a tutorial thing on monday which was actually pretty helpful. all we've done so far is recap linear algebra from last year which i understood pretty well so i'm finding things alright. i still have a lecture i've not done yet so i need to get that done (and the 2 new videos for this week) by thursday which is gonna be stressful. the lecturer is good but he goes super quick so a 30 minute video takes me like 2 hours to get through cos i'm pausing it every 2 seconds to catch up :hide:

mas3712 matrix analysis - absolutely loving this so far. the content has been pretty accessible so far, some new stuff but it all makes sense so it's all good. this week we had a revision/drop in session on thursday where the lecturer just quickly went through what was covered in the lectures (which i had actually done in advance this time) and then we could stay around to ask questions afterwards. i was one of 6 or 7 people to stay until the end and it was honestly so helpful, he does these every other week and i think they're gonna be really useful. already looking forward to this week's lectures lol. got a problems class today so hopefully i'm able to answer some of the problems!

mas3810 methods for differential equations - we had our first lecture in our first zoom meeting on wednesday which was ok but it was mainly just motivating examples so i didn't take much down. i later watched the other 2 lectures which were more normal and i think i understand most of it. it's all pretty new ngl but it does follow on from stuff we already know, like solving 2nd order ODEs with an integrating factor and some other stuff i've since forgotten lol. i've got a problems class this morning so hopefully that helps with the assignment cos i've had a look at it and omg i cannot even begin yet

mas3811 quantum mechanics - really not a fan of this one. last monday we had a problems class in which we were split into breakout rooms to solve one problem (bear in mind we hadn't even had a lecture yet). because it was all on last year's content we were expected to fly through it but none of us had solved a differential equation in 5 months and we were rusty. the room i got put in was the one with the lecturer in and i nearly burst into tears i was so stressed lol. we had a phd helper with us for most of it so we did finish the problem unlike a few groups. but yeah i'm certainly not looking forward to another one. the lectures really aren't great either, he's essentially just told us to learn from the notes and he'll cover "key points" in his lectures. so it's all a bit of a waste of time. hopefully it gets better

mas3812 advanced fluid dynamics - i still haven't actually done a single thing for this yet. i missed the problems class on tuesday because i was at work, and haven't actually watched any of the lectures yet. i've got a live session later on today so god knows how that's gonna go lol. i was good at fluids last year so hopefully i remember some of it cos i think a lot of it follows directly on

work stuff
realised i really can't balance this with uni anymore, so i think i'm gonna leave. i've got 2 weeks holiday after this so if i can skilfully time it so i don't have to go back afterwards then that'd be ideal. but it's a conversation i really dont wanna have lol. we get to dress up for halloween on saturday so i'm going as a witch ahah

mathsoc stuff
we had our taskmathster social on tuesday which was actually a massive success, i didn't think it'd go well at all but i was surprised. this week we've got a halloween quiz & games night with a prize for best costume so i really hope people dress up!! we had a committee meeting on thursday which annoyed me but that's a whole other story. we've also got a pumpkin carving mini social on friday but i'm not gonna go cos i'll be in the cluster at uni all day

other society stuff
dance was a lot better this week, i actually followed it all and it didn't buffer too much despite being on zoom! i was feeling dead good about it so decided to audition for competitions :hide: i filmed and sent off my video on friday which is TERRIFYING, i'll find out tonight if i've made it on to the team or not! i have a semi-good feeling about it though as they extended auditions for beginners tap for an extra day which makes me think not many people auditioned. but i don't wanna get my hopes up lol, i'm a rubbish dancer. rag didn't do anything this week, they don't have a social sec atm so socials are pretty few and far between

other stuff
on friday i went into my uni building for the first time since march to use the computer cluster & switch up my study space. it was soooo good to be back in there and it was really empty. i never have any live stuff on a friday so i think i'm gonna make it a weekly thing. i did get a bit distracted by some friends who came in but tbf i haven't seen anyone but my housemates for weeks so i got a bit giddy. i'm sure it'll wear off eventually. oh also i had a meeting with my personal tutor on wednesday to talk about me having to do jury duty next month (can't remember if i mentioned this?) and he was really helpful, he's gonna see what he/the uni can do for me and get back to me which is really nice. i'm not looking forward to doing it at all lol

this week has been rough, adjusting to uni again and everything being online has taken a real toll on me and i've cried a lot lol. but i've planned my week so hopefully this week is better. i guess we'll see how that goes :dontknow:

anyway yeah i don't want this to be too long so i'll end it here. hope you guys have a good week & i'll see you next week :smile:
oh yeah i did reply to all you above but tsr ate it so it didn't post :frown: sorry about that
niamh x

tags

(edited 3 years ago)
hope you find next week a bit better :jumphug:
let us know whether you get onto the team!
Sorry to hear it's been so stressful :console:

I think not working will help as you'll be able to plan your time better.

I hope the courses you aren't finding enjoyable improve :smile:

Hang in there ...
Yay for dance: whatever the result of your audition, I'm proud of you for putting yourself forward :biggrin:

Urgh, hate it when lecturers go really fast and you've no idea what they've said :erm:

Jury duty sounds very grown-up and scary :eek:

Sorry to hear you've been crying a lot this week :frown: Am only a message away if that would help (even if I don't understand maths stuff, am willing to listen :smile: ) :yes:
You can do this :hugs: message if you want, but you'll get back into it. One day at a time :penguinhug: