GradPreview, here I come!
Someone at Caltech made a big mistake— I got into the GradPreview program. Not that I’m a bad choice necessarily, but how would they know: I didn’t turn in my transcript, or any letters of recommendation. Maybe I had exceptionally great essays? More likely, not very many people applied.
Either way, I don’t care. Nov 9-11, I’ll be at Caltech, soaking in the environs, and seeing if I do want to go there for grad school. I’m not looking forward to the expected social mixing, but I’m holding out for the chance that just being there will loosen me up. One thing I need to do is find out who on the math faculty is doing research I’d be interested in, and inveigle my way into their presence. Also, I need to get a real haircut (opposed to my homebrewed attempts) before I go.
Yeah! CalTech!
October 13th, 2005 at 7:24 pm
Congratulations! One good thing about CA: the weather never sucks.
October 14th, 2005 at 7:25 pm
Thanks! I hope it doesn’t rain after what you said…
October 17th, 2005 at 12:01 am
Congratulations! I was a Caltech undergraduate over 30 years ago, so virtually all the professors I knew are gone in one way or another. If algebra is your field, then Michael Aschbacher is someone you need to track down. He was just a kid when I took Math 5 from him, Introduction to Abstract Algebra, and my hair is still swept back from the rush.
Speaking of hair, don’t worry too much about the haircut. Who at Caltech is going to notice? They let me graduate despite having homebrew haircuts all the way through.
Oh, and the weather in Pasadena isn’t too bad. The city is close enough to the San Gabriel mountains that the LA smog has to struggle to get into town. I presume it’s worse now than it was in the seventies, but it’ll still be better than lower down in the basin.
Have a good time and good luck!
October 21st, 2005 at 8:31 am
I like algebra, but the professor I’m working with does a lot of abstract harmonic analysis, functional analysis, and wavelets stuff, all of which seem like areas I’d like to work in further. I looked up a few people doing work in those areas at Caltech, so I can go check them out.
November 14th, 2005 at 10:56 pm
I was a Caltech undergrad just 10 years ago (as opposed to 30!) and the Math department was the bane of my
existence. Only because everyone there was so freakin’ smart and I am sort of a dolt when it comes to math
classes that don’t deal with actual numbers (which was everything I took in college!). Hope your trip was fun!