Year 3 Fall at HKUST

I sit now at Gate 42, Terminal 1, Hong Kong International Airport writing this. I am on my way to Monash University for a summer (or rather, winter) research experience, which I will also write about hopefully before September starts.

The final semester before graduate school applications has concluded. I must say again that I thought I had accomplished nothing the past year, yet when I think back to who I was a year ago today, commencing my UROP project, I realise that I have learned much. This is probably a cliche, although I don’t see it that often. Pointing that out was probably a cliche as well. But having shared experiences is a part of being human and I don’t feel like I should avoid expressing them just because someone else said it.

This is supposed to be a summary of what I did in year 3 spring term. Let’s try something more succinct this time.

The goods:

1. Beifang’s three hour ‘combinatorics’ lecture every Wednesday night was probably what I looked forward to the most this term.
2. The project goes steadily. I was stuck for the first half of the term so that wasn’t very enjoyable. But otherwise I was able to gain a better understanding of the problem (and the solution) every week.
3. Despite putting in very minimal effort, I was able to scrape by another two graduate requirements with B+s. That is enough for me.

The bads:

1. Calculus on manifolds was not enjoyable at all and I didn’t learn jack shit.
2. I realised that perhaps I spent too little time on mathematics. Am I physically unable to do so, or is it a mental block?
3. One and a half years ago, I said that I didn’t know what I want to do in graduate school. I still don’t. This is an issue. I got a taste of many fields in probability in the previous two years. I wasn’t very good at any of them, but nor was I bad. There are still some that I want to try. But I don’t have much time left, do I?

One way to fix this is to delay doing a research degree. This is most easily accomplished by going to France for masters, which is one of my more realistic options. Another is to accept, or rather, be accepted. It is unlikely that I have much say in what I do for my PhD. I’d be very fortunate to get multiple offers.