Liberal Arts Students in a Semester of Maths?

I’ve never questioned my liberal arts education until this semester.

When I was in the process of searching for colleges I was torn between choosing to study music or to study something in the sciences– so I didn’t make a choice… I went where I could do both. I decided to go to a liberal arts college and became a math major with a minor in pipe organ performance.

I still feel like this was the right choice for me, but I am no longer as certain as I used to be. What if I had gone to a tech or research university instead?

Spending this semester at BSM is making me realize how much math I simply don’t know. And it makes sense: the students who go to university and take 4 or 5 STEM courses a semester where I normally take two should know more math and science than I do.

However, it’s causing me to struggle here. There are so many things I don’t know. So many “famous” proofs that I have not seen. So many “rudimentary” theorems I’ve not heard of before. I take longer on my problem sets than many other students because I need to do the background scut work at the same time. It makes me be the embarrassed student in the room who raises her hand during the colloquium in response to the question:

–Who doesn’t know that proof the area of a parallelogram on a grid is equal to the determinant of its two component vectors?

At BSM, unlike at home, I sit toward the bottom of the class here. I sit in lecture and feel kind of stupid in terms of my mathematical knowledge. My liberal arts education has not prepared me mathematically for the intense program at BSM. I’m having a hard time. I imagine this is what graduate school in maths might be like, and that I will have to work exceedingly hard to fill in the gaps in my maths education if I choose to pursue graduate studies.

However, my liberal arts education has given me breadth of knowledge, if not mathematical depth. It has taught me how to learn anything I want or need to, and it’s allowed me to follow my multiple passions.

I have to remember that although I might feel stupid in the maths classroom, there is so much else I get the chance to study that science-only students don’t:

• I have classroom discussions on gender and sexuality.
• I take advanced-level French and have become completely conversationally proficient.
• I write papers on the importance of memorilization in a post-genocide society.
• I give recitals and lead entire worship services from behind a pipe organ.

This is all important too!

I think that neither the liberal arts student nor the science student is better than the other– they’re just different. I am beginning to understand that we probably need both kinds of academic citizens in this world.

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Feature Photo: Last Light, by Felix Gonzalez Torres. “The work of Cuban-born artist Felix Gonzalez-Torres, whose family emigrated to the US in 1979, revolves around themes both personal and political, such as racism, homophobia, history, and international politics. Inspired by Christmas decorations, his lightbulb installations suggest both celebration and memorial. Untitled [Last Light] alludes to his friend Ross Laycock’s death from AIDS in 1991, evoking not only death but also renewal, bulbs always being replaced as they burn out.” (Le Centre Pompidou.)

Mathematical Modelling: A Tool for the Indecisive (aka me)

It’s time to apply for next semester’s housing back on my home campus.

My friend who’s also abroad and I were stressed about filling out the forms with our housing preferences. We both want to be living in singles, but we want to be in the same dorm. So much is riding on the results of this form!

Our conversations went something like:

–I’d love to live in Safford.

–But so would everyone else! So we probably won’t both get into Safford.

–What about 18? No one wants to live in 18. We should both get in there.

–Yuck. There is no way I want to live there.

–What do we do?!!

So I did what any normal person would do… I created a mathematical model to rank the dorms for us!

(I think I have officially reached a new level of geekiness.)

I made a very simple Excel model which took into account:

1. How much we like a given dorm (on a scale of 0-5)
2. The ratio of Single Rooms : Total Students Housed in the Dorm (as a percent, then normalized also on a scale of 0-5), and
3. The popularity of a given dorm (Very popular = 0 points, sort of popular = 1 point, not popular = 2 points).

Add the values up, and voilà! All the dorms on campus are ranked for us with scores between 0 and 12.

The thing that was very cool about it is that the model actually put the dorms we were thinking we might apply for on top of the rankings. So we did!

And there were no more stressed-out conversations. You can’t argue with math. :)

The Secret Pre-rec to BSM

Hands down, the course I am most thankful to have taken before coming to BSM is my Discrete Mathematics course.

I’ve been really surprised at how much I am relying on the things I learned in discrete math. The only official pre-rec to BSM is having taken either Abstract Algebra or Real Analysis, and that’s really just to ensure you have learned enough math and are at a high enough mathematical level for the courses offered.

Yes, I’m very glad I took Real Analysis– I use the thought processes developed in that class all the time. Real Analysis was the first math course I took in which I genuinely struggled; it taught me how to work through confusion and persevere. It began to teach me what it actually means to do math as opposed to just learn math.

But I use the topics covered in Discrete Math every single day at BSM. After this week, I have officially done some degree of graph theory in ALL FOUR of my math classes! My friend’s response upon hearing that from me was simply: “Welcome to Hungary.” (:

For example, in Abstract Algebra, we’re studying and doing problem sets on the symmetires of graphs.

Every single bioinformatics model I’m studying is a type of graph.

The matrices I am researching are bipartite directed multigraphs.

Our game theoretic models are…yes…graphs.

I knew that Hungarians were famous for their teaching of combinatorics, but I couldn’t have anticipated the extent to which graph theory is utalized as a mathematical tool here in Hungary.

I’m finding myself doing proofs in which I need to interpret the problem as a graph, then use graph theoretic theorems to solve it! I learned how to do this in discrete math; I would really be struggling if I hadn’t taken that class. And discrete is actually not even a direct requirement for my math major back home.

Some other discrete math topics I’m so grateful to know:

• Counting, counting, counting: I use a lot of combinatorics counting arguments in abstract algebra. For example, last week we needed them to answer the question that there were, of course, 7 choose 3 divided by three times 4 choose three divided by 3 all divided by 2 unique cycle permutations in some group. I found the counting argument much more difficult than the algebra part of that problem!

• Modular Arithmetic: Many of the groups we use as examples in Abstract Algebra utilize modular arithmetic in some way. We did a short lesson on it in the beginning of the abstract course, but it was incredibly helpful to already have an understanding of the properties of the operation and to have practice adding, multiplying, finding “fractions” and using inverses in modular sets. Even though we did a small unit on modular arithmetic during this course, our homework sets require a more through understanding of modular arithmetic than was covered in class and one that I only have thanks to my discrete math course back home.

• Set Theory: In Game Theory, we are constantly using power sets, and everything is turned into a set of actions, a set of player payoffs, etc.

• Probability: My bio research professor told me that many American students he meets seem to fear probability. “It’s just some value between 0 and 1. That’s it.” In my research group we’re working with uniform probabilities– we are using lots and lots of Markov Chain Monte Carlo processes, and I wish my probability background was stronger than it is.

• LaTeX: It’s actually just coincidence that I learned to use Tex in discrete math, but I’m going to include it on this list anyway. (: I TeX all of my problem sets for Game Theory. It’s by far not required, yet by far the preferred method of receiving problem sets by my professor.
  Additionally, there is this social hierarchy that exists in the math community surrounding the use of LaTeX (just see #1 on “Ten Signs a Claimed Mathematical Breakthrough is Wrong” for proof). For us, it’s an unspoken understanding that the students who regularly turn their problem sets in using TeX are the ones you’re trying to measure up to. The math world is a learn to typeset in LaTeX or be an outsider kind of place.

I am using all of my previous math knowledge in some way this semester: sequences and series sometimes come up, properties of the real numbers are important, I might (rarely…) take a derivative, matrices are great, but, I am currently thanking the math gods that I’ve had a semester of discrete mathematics.

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I am still updating my BSM Tips page! Don’t forget to check it out if you’re considering spending a semester or two at BSM.

“I’m a woman in tech. That doesn’t mean everything has to be pink.”

I originally wrote this post on August 9, 2014, but unfortunately just got around to editing and publishing it now:

I recently listened to the New Tech City podcast episode “Mindy Kaling, Girly Girls, and the Future of Tech.” To use a phrase given by the dissenting opinion on the episode, it made me cringe.

The episode was about the attempt to get more girls involved in computer programming by “meeting them where they are”–aka by pink-ifying, glitter-ifying, and pony-ifying computer programming. By making it seem **glamorous** to 8-16 year old girls.

Now, I completely agree that we need more women in tech (I wrote my entire gender studies final on the subject last semester), and I’m also all for diversifying the stereotype of what a typical programmer/scientist/mathematician looks like. I hope that soon when someone thinks of one they do not always imagine an old, antisocial, white man with glasses and a pocket protector.

So it’s totally awesome to want to encourage “girly girls” into the sciences. But I guess what my concern is about is this idea of “meeting them where they are”– because they’re not all there. My concern is about losing the middle ground. I think we need to make sure we are not only attracting the girly girls, but also actively encouraging the tomboys and the not-quite-so-girly and the “my favorite color is orange and I like to play softball” girls into the sciences.

Think about the concept of intersectionality, which focuses on an individual’s multiple identities, made famous by Kimberlé Crenshaw in the ’80s. Her emphasis at that time was on the African American WOMEN’s unique set of struggles that cannot be addressed by either the feminist movement or the Civil Rights movement alone. By being part of not one, but two distinct minorities, the complex identity created at the intersection of these two separate identities carries extra weight.

Consider the not-so-girly girl. She likes math. Her favorite subject is chemistry (and no one had to trick her into it!). With this influx of girl-focused programming initiatives, you’re going to lose her.

As referenced on the podcast episode, many boys get involved in computer science because they love video games. She doesn’t. Yet still if you send her an invitation to Google’s “pink lemonade” girl coding gala, she’s not going to be excited about it. The other girls already make fun of her because she doesn’t want a boyfriend, she doesn’t wear makeup, and she likes to ask for the “boy” toy in her McDonald’s Happy Meal. She’s not like them. How is she going to get into coding? She is seeing that if you are a boy, there’s a place for you in the sciences, and if you’re a very feminine girl, there’s a place for you in the sciences. She’s falling through the cracks.

I’m concerned that her intersection of identities–being a girl, but not a girly-girl– is creating extra weight and thus making it more difficult for her to peruse a career in the sciences. Which is ironic because she ought to be easy to encourage– she already likes the subjects.

Bringing more women into the sciences is an excellent and admirable goal. Just make sure there is space left for those of us women who are already standing outside the door, waiting to be welcomed by the still male-dominated STEM world.

A RES Experience

On a whim, I joined a RES group here at BSM. I wasn’t planning to be in a research class– I considered it but was entirely daunted by the task. Yet somehow I ended up in the bioinformatics research group for the term…

And, although I absolutely love it, the RES class is definitely daunting. Our first real assignment was due last Thursday; we were told to give a fifteen minute presentation explaining the research question and goals in place of that week’s colloquium. Cue a lecture hall including the students who are giving presentations, the professors whose research topics are being presented by well-intentioned students, and a few extras who wanted to watch it all happen. Throw in some Hungarian cheesy biscuits, chocolate cookies, and fizzy water at the front of the room to snack on and you have the idea.

The presentation was essentially asking us in our small groups to give a fifteen minute presentation on an open mathematical question, on a subject we had known nothing about two weeks before, to a room-full of people, in front of the professor who came up with the question and could give the presentation better with his eyes closed. It was terrifying. My research partner and I were told afterward that we did “OK-ish” and I was fully satisfied with that result.

The event was really intense, but also totally fascinating to me. Interruptions from professors in the middle of presentations may or may not have (hint: they did) included things like:

–I can’t hear you because you are talking into the wall. I also can’t read your handwriting. Therefore I have no idea what you are saying.

–I do not know what g is. You did not label g. What is g? Is it a set, a polynomial, an integer, what?

–Can you put the title on the board? I do not know what you are talking about. You’re mumbling.

–You should have practiced with the Powerpoint clicker first. That is very distracting.

Whenever a mistake was made, professors in the back would have side conversations to clarify for each other. Students would make mistakes on the board because they were trying to give equations from memory, then their research professor would correct it for them from the back. You could tell each RES professor wanted their student to do well and get it right, in part because they were being judged by how well we were doing. The research questions were being introduced to some of the other professors for the first time by us, their students. So their ideas were being judged in whatever form we were presenting them. It had to be right.

During the Q&A for me and my partner, we were asked what results we expected by the end of the semester. My honest idea was I don’t know!! Ask my professor what he thinks we will find at the end of the semester! I gave my best shot at an answer, watching my bio professor’s face the entire time for any signal of agreement or disagreement.

The colloquium was somewhat painful to watch. Part of the assignment was to sit in the audience and observe each other flounder at the board. We wanted each other to succeed!

It was rough going.
Thankfully, there were cookies.

Mi furcsa Magyarországon? What is peculiar in Hungary?

 

 

I have been living in Budapest for three weeks now, and really it’s been a lovely city to be living in. It’s easy to get around, beautiful, safe, and a fun place to live. I’m enjoying it a lot despite the difficulties of living in a city where you do not know the language.

Here are a few of the things I have encountered in Budapest that were culturally so different and surprising that I stopped to take a photo:

1. Okmánybélyeg

 

 

These pictured are 18000 Forints worth of… postage stamps! Somewhere around 80 USD! In tiny pieces of paper!

In order to apply for your residency permit in Hungary, you must pay for it in the form of okmánybélyeg. You need to go to a post office and purchase them, then bring them with you to the immigration office. At immigration, you give the officer the payment who then pulls a glue stick out of the desk and pastes one by one them to your application.

In Hungarian class, we did an exercise in which the prompt was ,,Mi furcsa Magyarországon?”/”What is pecular in Hungary?” My response was the okmánybélyeg. My teacher said they were kind of a strange thing for Hungarians, too. :)

 

2. So. Many. Puppies!

 

 

I thought this puppy was absolutely adorable. :) I walked past him downtown waiting for his owner at a restaurant. Budapest is known to be a “dog city” rather than a cat city. There are always people on the streets or in the park walking dogs and it’s not uncommon for them to be tied up outside grocery stores or restaurants. Dogs are let off their leash a lot more than I’m used to in the States, too.

3. “British” Secondhand Stores 

 

I think this is just something that I personally haven’t figured out yet. Almost every secondhand store in the city is marked by a British flag and the designation ,,Angol.” I have no idea why secondhand stores must also be British. But it was helpful when I was trying to find one last weekend! Look for the British flag!

4. Light Switches

  

The very first day I was in Hungary I was confused by the light switches. They’re so square and enormous compared to the ones I’m used to in the U.S. I kind of like them now, though. There’s a bigger surface area to hit when you’re trying to find the switch in the dark. :)

5. Eggs

Two things about eggs: one, they’re not refrigerated in the store. I walked up and down and up and down the refrigerated dairy section in Spar before I understood they weren’t there. Two, you might find some feathers in your carton of eggs!

6. Parking on the Sidewalks

A lot of the parking in the city involves parking half of your car on the sidewalk and half in the street. When I was dropped off at my apartment the day I arrived in Budapest, I thought the driver was just confused and had hit the curb. But, no, he was actually just pulling all the way into the parking space. :o

 

 

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Ma volt az első nap az egyetemen tanulni mateket. Volt jól. Az tánarok nagyon kedves vannak. Most ismerem sok diák.
Today was the first day at the university to study math. It was good. The teachers are very nice. Now I know many students. (I need to learn a lot more Hungarian! Thankfully I am planning to take Hungarian II this semester) 

The first day of math was exhausting, but really good. I am excited to be back in the math classroom with a lot of really great students and professors who are very passionate about mathematics.

 

 

 

Most Budapesten Lakom

Sziastok! Amerikai vagyok, de most Budapesten lakom. Diák vagyok. Tanulok magyarul a nyelviskolaban és matematika az egyetemen. Beselek angulul, franciaul, és egy kicsi magyarul. Most, tanulok magyarul 9-tól délután 4-ig! Szerintem, Budapest szép. Boldog vagyok lenni Magyarorságon.

I know there are many mistakes, but that was my first attempt to introduce myself in Hungarian: Hello! I am American, but now I live in an apartment in Budapest. I am a student. I study Hungarian at the language school and mathematics at the university. I speak English, French, and a little bit of Hungarian. Now, I study Hungarian from 9 until 4 in the afternoon! In my opinion, Budapest is beautiful. I am happy to be in Hungary.

 

I’ve been in the language school for six days of class so far. It is very intense and exhausting but I really love it. Hungarian is incredibly different from French and English (and for pretty much every other language I believe!) both in terms of grammar and words. There are very few cognates to help me memorize vocabulary, and I’m having a hard time trying to find other ways to remember the words. The instructors are great, though, and we are not translating so much as learning to think in Hungarian which is super cool and different from how I was taught French in public school. We learn our new vocab sets using pictures and actions instead of just translating word for word. Which is particularly important I think because the word order and sentence structure of Hungarian is so different from English that you just sort of need to be able to think in Hungarian to some extent. Because of the different grammatical structure, translating English —> Hungarian word-for-word isn’t going to get you all that far in terms of being understood.

Something that really is surprising me is how often I am thinking in FRENCH here. Apparently my French and my Hungarian are stored in the same place in my brain, in some sort of “foreign language” compartment. Often, if there is a word of phrase that I don’t know in Hungarian but I do know in French, I find myself saying the French one instead without even realizing it! ,,Kerek két almast és… c’est tout.” (H: I would like two apples and… Fr: that’s all.”) I have heard of people mixing their French and Spanish foreign languages, but I didn’t think that would be an issue for me because French and Hungarian are so different.

The Hungarian flashcards I had created and had been studying at home were mostly food words, partly because I really enjoyed playing this game that another WordPress user had shared with me. :) I thought it seemed kind of silly or unnecessary to have so many food words, but I am so glad that was the case! Going to the grocery store is one of the most difficult everyday events for me here. It takes a lot of energy to shop for food in a language you have only been studying for two weeks.

Going to the grocery store is like being a little kid again– like a kid who can’t read, you’re very reliant on pictures. You stare at the cases and cases of foods only to realize you will never figure out which one you actually want. So you pick the yellow box of yogurt because, well, it’s yellow and that seems as good a reason as any. Trying to go grocery shopping becomes a gambling game and you just sort of get stuck with what you get and hope it works.

results from my first Hungarian shopping trip

Despite the struggles with language (which, thanks to class are getting easier every day) I’m really happy to be here. The other students are so nice and fun to be with, the city is beautiful and easy to navigate, and I feel safe. The math semester begins in about a week and a half. I feel like I’m finally settling in and am very excited for what is to come!