So I had my first adviser appointment this morning. It was mainly just to chat about my major and how classes are going, but also to start me thinking about next semester classes and developing my 'four year plan.' The entire prospect of mapping out my next four years in classes is a little intimidating for me. Double majoring in math and cs (maybe just in general) is kind of a double edged sword for someone who wants to get out of here in four years. In a sense, its a good combination because of the overlap of requirements (a better combination then say math and graphic design), but the demand of each major's requirements for both B.S.'s leaves me with little to no breathing room for fun elective courses (even within the math/cs department).
At this point I'm pretty damn thankful for buying that dual enrollment credit in Brit Lit last year so that i don't have to take the usual Truman requirement of writing as critical thinking. (My intro to critical thinking class that i took at Webster University a few summers back just transfered as useless elective credit :\) I'm also pretty happy about the lack of traditional basket weaving classes I have to take to fill LSP requirements. Sure I'll be talking public speaking next semester, and there's always the prospect of having to take some health equivalent if i don't test out of it, but otherwise I'm pretty happy with my other LSP's. Since TSU is a liberal arts university each student must complete seven of the eight 'Modes of Inquiry" categories to graduate and to, in theory, make us well rounded people suited for high level cocktail conversation and to reap the other numerous benefits that an LSP is supposed to give us (free t-shirts and the freshmen 15?). My macroeconomics will complete the social sciences inquiry, all my current math satisfies the math one, and then i just have to look forward to a semester each of Bio and Chem (for life sciences and general science), an Italian film class (art), symbolic logic (for that philosophy/religion requirement, HA), and history of science till 1700's (history). All that means is that I get to drop the lit requirement which is good news for math/cs nerd who doesn't want to spend their time doing excessive amounts of reading/paper writing.
In my Monday morning boredom i decided to just go ahead and fill out my four year plan, filling in required classes and well....more required classes. Aside from my LSPs my last two years are basically all just math or cs variants. I've decided based on the quality (or lack thereof) of TSU's Japanese program not to go out of my way to continue on with Japanese after I complete intermediate this year. Mainly, my schedule's just too packed with major classes and I'm no longer considering a study abroad in Japan. (Ok, so here's the real reason I'm not going much further with this language: all those damn anime fans that are in my classes. I have nothing against anime (we all had a phases), but the devouted fans are just....creepy. Just like how in my econ class all of our examples revolve around Natty (crappy beer) everything in Japanese deals with how to say how much you love that one character with blue hair and big breasts.) But that's not to say I haven't given up all want to go abroad (or go back to Japan). It's just that studying abroad for me in Japan would be a very difficult thing to coordinate. If i went to Japan, or Korea, I'd basically have to sacrifice a semester to just go and learn the language and culture. Finding upper level math/cs classes taught in english in asian countries is a tricky thing.
So what does a math major with a tight schedule and cultural ambitions do? They go to eastern europe. At TSU there are two awesome options for math majors, a study abroad in Moscow or Budapest. I know virtually nothing about eastern Europe, other than it sounds really cold. At first, this didn't sound as appealing as a semester abroad in a culture that I was more familiar with like Japan, but the more research I did on the Budapest Semesters in Mathematics I fell into love with the idea. Budapest itself looks abosolutely beautiful, and would allow me to travel all over Europe (talk about the ultimate cultural experience). The program itself is a dream come true for a math nerd: learning mathematics under the tutelage of top Hungarian professors surrounded by fellow students from all over the US and Canada with the same passion as you. And the best part, if I go by my four year plan and study abroad my junior year I'll be able to go see the Stephen Colbert Bridge. :D
Eat that anime nerds.
Every so often I find myself completely and utterly bored. I'm still amazed that the rare occasion of me having free time not consumed by calc II stuff or people presents itself with my brain still intact. In the past, when such a golden opportunity would present itself i'd study ahead for math, learn new kanji, or pirate (err....not pirate, discover) new music. Nowadays however, i've found that working ahead in my calc textbook doesn't lead to as many fun and exciting discovers as it once did. I've flipped through the book, it looks about as it should: improper integrals (looks like an apt progression for all this other integration we've been doing), lots of parametic equations (who doesn't like conic sections?), sequences and series with a bit of vectors towards the end. Maybe its just because there's no visable climax comparable to the fundamental theorm of calculus that last year offered. Or maybe i just know too much about where calculus is headed compared to last year. Either way, our calc class is in a boring stage of integral approximation (*yawn*) where no full proofs are given ("just believe me on this one guys; we don't have time for a proof") just straight up equations which require us to mimic the rote processes of a computer algebra system. Lame.
But hey, that's how it goes, and you gotta know how to evaulate integrals like e^(x^2).
Since i haven't been filling in this extra time with extra calculus i've been on the lookout for something else to peek my mathematical mind. I had been considering taking up a little side project like logic and proof writing, but i wouldn't want to spoil next semesters Fundamentals of Mathematics. *sigh* so the extracurricular math is on hold till further notice, time to look towards my next big interest: computers.
My programming class is moving at the pace of any other freshmen intro class, and Ada95 isn't exactly the sexiest language to keep me up at night lusting over the minute details of it's control structures. Sure Ada's a great language for the classroom, but in my golden spare time i want something to really confuse the shit out of me and get a rise out of it. Enter iota, a cute little programming language that only uses two characters and no variables (can you imagine debugging?!) I think its just gotten my award for most fucking insane programming language ever (or at least a clost runner up to this).
Sorry guys, but next time Allie has a free weekend she's gonna be studying SKI combinator calculus.
