I'm going to write more detailed posts reflecting on this semester, but here are some more general thoughts on how I ended up here and about going back home.
Why I keep going abroad:
Yes, I keep leaving the United States. I've spent 8.5 out of the last 18.5 months abroad. I knew I wanted to study away for a semester, but I hadn't planned to spend so much time overseas. The Critical Language Scholarship Program was something I found out about during fall of first year and latched onto; it wasn't how I had imagined spending my first summer. Last year, I applied for some mechanical engineering internships and was considering talking to Olin professors about doing research at Olin over the summer when I found out about SERIUS, and less than a week after hearing about the program, I was for sure going to Singapore to do research.
Budapest Semesters in Mathematics (BSM) was the one that was actually planned. Like I said, when I started at Olin I knew I wanted to go abroad, and I was considering BSM, but I was also thinking about programs where I could study in French or Spanish or German. By mid-fall of sophomore year, though, I was pretty set on BSM (more on that below).
Some of my family and friends love to travel, and while I enjoy traveling, it's not something I love. What I've found that I love is living in a place, the process of somewhere new becoming familiar and home. I love the way that dépaysement, the disorientation and breaking of habits by being in a new place or situation, gives way to surprising comfort. I love being a regular at my favorite restaurants, cafes, and bakeries, having church family in four congregations in three countries, and learning cities well enough to give directions when just a few months before, I got a little lost nearly every time I left my apartment.
I love being nearly 9,000 kilometers from my house and yet still feeling like I'm home.
Why I came to BSM:
This is in many ways more complicated than any other reflection I've written here because the why is so different. This wasn't as simple as 'I have to take these classes' or 'It meets a requirement and seems interesting.' I needed to take six more credits of math, but I could have taken a couple of math classes at Olin or Wellesley to do that. So why BSM?
Wednesday, December 17, 2014
Tuesday, December 2, 2014
If I Were At Expo
Rebecca Christianson, the Olin prof who organizes Expo at the end of every semester, sent out the email for Expo sign-ups today. Expo is the "end-of-semester celebration of student work," and all on-campus Oliners are required to present something each semester. I'm going to be in Budapest, not at Olin, so I'm not participating, but it made me think about what I would do for Expo were I somehow to be at Olin on December 19th.
A lot of Olin's classes lead to Expo-presentable work because they're project based, and many classes that aren't project based for most of the semester have final projects that are Expo-able. It's a little weird that I've only presented project work at one Expo. In fall 2012 I presented my last ModSim project, in spring and fall 2013 I used my graph theory research for Expo, and last spring I talked about my Passionate Pursuit. For the past three semesters, I've talked about either math or ballet.
So it shouldn't be surprising that if I had to come up with something for Expo this semester, it would probably concern math or ballet.
It's a little tricky, though, because my classes this semester have been very different from Olin classes. There are no projects. Even in Spectral Theory, my most Olin-ish class, nothing I'm doing is original. I'm very proud of the work I've done here, and I've worked harder than I generally work in a semester at Olin, but it's all proving known statements or solving problems with known answers because that's how one learns mathematics. There are lots of things I've proven or seen proven that I think are really cool, and I've considered trying to use a few of them for Midnight Mathematicians talks in the future, but giving that kind of presentation isn't really in the spirit of Expo.
That brings me to ballet. I've seen a lot of ballet here, more in a single semester than I usually see in a year. In Bratislava and Prague I saw two very unusual productions of Romeo and Juliet, and I could easily compare them to each other and to more standard choreographies. I also saw unusual versions of Carmen and Coppelia, so instead of focusing on R&J I could talk about new choreographies of traditional ballets, or I could add in La Sylphide and Merry Widow and explore the structure of story ballets from different time periods.
I think it's a little weird, though not necessarily surprising, that one of the ways I chose to spend my free time would yield at least three potential Expo projects, whereas the hundreds of hours of mathematics I've done wouldn't translate into anything appropriate for Expo. Expo works as a requirement at Olin because of the nature of Olin. BSM is very different, and trying to do Expo this semester with an Olin mindset would be difficult because of that difference.
A lot of Olin's classes lead to Expo-presentable work because they're project based, and many classes that aren't project based for most of the semester have final projects that are Expo-able. It's a little weird that I've only presented project work at one Expo. In fall 2012 I presented my last ModSim project, in spring and fall 2013 I used my graph theory research for Expo, and last spring I talked about my Passionate Pursuit. For the past three semesters, I've talked about either math or ballet.
So it shouldn't be surprising that if I had to come up with something for Expo this semester, it would probably concern math or ballet.
It's a little tricky, though, because my classes this semester have been very different from Olin classes. There are no projects. Even in Spectral Theory, my most Olin-ish class, nothing I'm doing is original. I'm very proud of the work I've done here, and I've worked harder than I generally work in a semester at Olin, but it's all proving known statements or solving problems with known answers because that's how one learns mathematics. There are lots of things I've proven or seen proven that I think are really cool, and I've considered trying to use a few of them for Midnight Mathematicians talks in the future, but giving that kind of presentation isn't really in the spirit of Expo.
That brings me to ballet. I've seen a lot of ballet here, more in a single semester than I usually see in a year. In Bratislava and Prague I saw two very unusual productions of Romeo and Juliet, and I could easily compare them to each other and to more standard choreographies. I also saw unusual versions of Carmen and Coppelia, so instead of focusing on R&J I could talk about new choreographies of traditional ballets, or I could add in La Sylphide and Merry Widow and explore the structure of story ballets from different time periods.
I think it's a little weird, though not necessarily surprising, that one of the ways I chose to spend my free time would yield at least three potential Expo projects, whereas the hundreds of hours of mathematics I've done wouldn't translate into anything appropriate for Expo. Expo works as a requirement at Olin because of the nature of Olin. BSM is very different, and trying to do Expo this semester with an Olin mindset would be difficult because of that difference.
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