Matlab: Lesson 3

February 17th, 2006 ~ Posted in: General

Today, I found out I was accepted to the applied and computational mathematics division at CalTech with full financial support; in a week I should be getting a letter with more details. Then I have to make the decision to stay at UH, in my comfort zone, or take the plunge. Assuming always that the support turns out to be enough– I’ve heard that the stipends offered by California schools don’t cover the horribly elevated living costs, and just recently, when I was buying a book at HalfPrice, the clerk mentioned her moving back to California would entail living in a cardboard box. Either way, I’m buzzed from the news.

On a different note. From the book Getting Started with Matlab: A Quick Introduction for Scientists and Engineers; in the list of exercises for Lesson 3 on creating and printing simple plots:

9. A very difficult plot: Use your knowledge of splines and interpolation to draw a lizard (just kidding).

Hands down, the funniest Matlab book I’ve seen, just for that ‘exercise’. And for some reason it reminded me of TAOCP– I guess because that’s the nature of some of Knuth’s ‘exercises’.

General ~

4 Responses to “Matlab: Lesson 3”

  • 1. Andy
    February 17th, 2006 at 10:10 pm

    go to Caltech! better name recognition, and it’s good to challenge yourself. take out loans — it will be worth it.

  • 2. didier
    February 18th, 2006 at 9:07 pm

    Congrats on your acceptance

  • 3. Alex
    February 19th, 2006 at 12:07 pm

    Thanks didier and Andy.

    The estimated annual cost of 12 months in grad school at CalTech is more than $47K, and I haven’t seen the financial support package, so it isn’t a sure thing that I’ll end up there. On the other hand, I’m thinking I could cover the difference for a year by taking out loans, and apply for all the fellowships I didn’t this year: GEMS, Ford foundation, and NSF again.

  • 4. Z
    February 20th, 2006 at 3:34 pm

    Congratulations Alex on the Caltech acceptance. I applied to the Physics department and have not heard anything back yet (this probably does not bode well).

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