Posted by martin on
Tuesday, 30 June 2009 at 22:42
I got my BA last week, and suddenly my time in Cambridge is at an end. The best bit of the graduation was when all the graduands process in academical dress (including hoods) from the college to the Senate House where the ceremony takes place. Many people, including all the bedders and no doubt a lot of unsuspecting tourists, came out to watch. I don’t know if colleges which are not as central as Trinity have such a procession; and while we got lovely weather, it wouldn’t be so fun in the rain (e.g. Magdalene got rained on).
A week before that, the Part II and Part III Maths results were read out in the Senate House (as last year - the results and graduation make the only three times I have been in the building). It is likely that this will be the last year that this is the first place where people hear their results. CUSU has been campaigning for them to be sent out by email before publication, on the grounds that getting your results in public is distressing for people who did badly. This has some truth, but I think that there is a significant advantage in learning your results along with your friends, as they will be in a better position to offer support than if you learned them privately (and maybe were then embarrassed about sharing them). This advantage applies to a much greater extent to the reading out of the Maths results, which everyone really does hear simultaneously, than to publication on the Senate House noticeboards as happens for other subjects.
Tags cambridge, partiii, tripos
Posted by martin on
Thursday, 19 June 2008 at 14:56
I am now officially a Wrangler (someone who gets a first in Part II of the Cambridge Maths Tripos). The results were announced this morning in the University Senate House - the chairman of the examiners stands in the balcony and reads out the lists of people awarded each class (another peculiarity of Maths Parts II and III; usually the list is just posted on a notice board outside the Senate House).
I will not however be graduating this year because I will be doing Part III Maths next year. This is not a proper postgraduate course - you don't get a degree at the end of it - and not eligible for postgraduate funding; until recently there has been an exception allowing you to continue to get undergraduate funding despite already having a degree. The government have noticed this year that this is no longer allowed, so now we have to not graduate until next year in order to continue to get funding.
Tags cambridge, tripos
Posted by martin on
Saturday, 07 June 2008 at 13:11
I had exams for the past week. For the past few weeks, I was doing not much but revising, although I went to Oundle two weeks ago for an IMO training camp and the final team selection. I did another geometry problem session, which was not as good as my one at Trinity because I had less time to prepare due to exam revision and because I had already used lots of my favourite questions on the first sheet.
I had four exams this week. All are essentially the same, and you are free to choose from 38 questions on all the different courses in the year. Of course noone has taken anywhere near all the courses - I took 12 and revised 9. In the end I did an average of five questions on each exam; I might have liked to do a bit more, but that is more than adequate for a first.
With exams over, I have a couple of weeks until the results with nothing in particular to do.
Tags cambridge, imo, teaching, trinity, tripos
Posted by martin on
Sunday, 28 May 2006 at 19:52
Exams are coming closer now - mine are from Thursday to the following Tuesday. Last Sunday I went to Oxford to play croquet against the Oxford Maths society. Croquet is an intensely tactical game and we were thorougly trounced - there were several Oxford people who seemed quite experienced - although I did manage to be the first person to get my ball through a hoop. Oxford is a strange place: it is far too big a city to put a university in, and they appear to have no equivalent to May Week, which is the period in mid-June when there are lots of post-exam parties.
According to the BBC, someone is to open a crocodile farm in Cambridgeshire. This reminds me of when I saw crocodiles in Australia. Apart from being a bit dangerous, I think they are very farmable animals although I don't know if they are happy with the climate in England. The article says that he will be allowing visitors on Saturdays, but it doesn't say if this has opened yet or how to contact the farm; I would certainly go and visit.
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Martin
Tags agriculture, archimedeans, cambridge
Posted by martin on
Monday, 31 October 2005 at 08:54
Well I will have been here a month tomorrow. I don't have much to write about from this week so I will write a bit about why this is such a great place.
One thing I like is the variety of people I am living with. There are people from all around the world - 30% of Trinity's students are from overseas (a lot from Poland). First there are those whom I see many times a day, who live along my corridor and it's always good to say hello to or have a chat with. A group of us went to see the Wallace and Gromit film last week. Five out of ten are Mathmos and another two Natscis (Natural Science). Then when I go to Hall for a meal, I eat with other people from round the college who are studying lots of different subjects.
It is also a great place to learn. I have written about how useful I find supervisions; and always having another good mathematician to talk to about a problem is helpful. But for me who is interested in everything, there are lots of opportunities to learn about other things as well. For example there are the language courses I am doing, and a good college library. Plus of course you can go to lectures in other subjects - I did Engineering and Politics this week.
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Martin
Tags cambridge, lectures, trinity
Posted by martin on
Monday, 24 October 2005 at 08:32
On Saturday night we had our Matriculation Dinner. This is a very elaborate (and very nice) dinner in the college Hall, attended by all the freshers as well as the Master and Fellows of the college (who are seated among the students). The catering department failed to put me on the seating plan, but they put me in the seat of someone who didn't turn up and I greatly enjoyed the dinner.
On Saturday afternoon, a number of the Methody people in Cambridge met for coffee: Leo, Rachael, Paul Ross, Ivan, Kathleen, Fiona Mulvenna who was up from Oxford, Peter Wasson, Nick. It was good to see people again.
On Friday I started my German class. We had a two-hour class so covered a lot of the basic phrases. I have also been to lectures in Anatomy and Anthropology this week. In two of the three Maths courses, we have reached the end of what I already knew and are starting on new stuff. I have two supervisions on Tuesday so I have had quite a lot of work this weekend (in so far as there is a weekend with lectures on Saturdays - Sunday is the only day which is really different from any other).
Just for you to see where I am living, I have taken a "few photos of the college":http://www.martinorr.name/2005/Photos.
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Martin
Tags cambridge, languages, lectures, trinity, tripos
Posted by martin on
Monday, 10 October 2005 at 16:11
Lectures started on Thursday. We have lectures 10-12 every day (including Saturday) and all in the same place, so it's very easy to keep track. It's somewhat odd not having any specific plan in the afternoons. We do have two 1-hour supervisions (with a research student) each week. My first is tomorrow and I have just gone across to the Centre for Mathematical Sciences to hand the work in for it. The CMS is an amazing new building in West Cambridge in seven layered pavilions and with a garden on the roof.
My courses this term are Algebra and Geometry, Numbers and Sets, and Differential Equations. So far there has been very little I have not done before.
I have also been to a Cambridge Union debate ("This House would rather warm up the planet than cool down the economy"), at which I tried to speak but only six speakers from the floor are accepted, and to squashes for the College and University Maths societies and the Russian Society. I also had lunch at my Tutor's on Sunday which is over two miles away - a long way in Cambridge.
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Martin
Tags cambridge, tripos
Posted by martin on
Tuesday, 04 October 2005 at 17:11
OK, it's ages since I have posted here. I arrived at Trinity College, Cambridge on Saturday. I didn't get my Internet connection until yesterday, and both before and since then I have been very busy. Thanks to Clare and the Bergins for your cards - they are sitting proudly on my mantelpiece.
So far we have had several very packed evenings in the college bar and elsewhere to meet people - there are 210 in the year, including about 40 mathematicians. I also have college parents (two third years) who we met on Sunday evening before the Freshers' Formal. Formal Hall is where you dine in the College Hall (with a giant portrait of Henry VIII at the front) in gowns - some people think it resembles Harry Potter. There is a bad photo of me with my college sister Catherine in our gowns at "http://people.pwf.cam.ac.uk/mpo25/tmp/cat.png":http://people.pwf.cam.ac.uk/mpo25/tmp/cat.png
On Sunday morning the College Christian Union gave a breakfast where you could find out about the churches members go to. I went to Christ Church, an Anglican church with a fairly modern but simple service. This was good, because it is one of the few times I have spoken to people outside the college. I have also been to the Chaplains' Squash, where all the College societies have stands, and the Freshers' Fair, which is the same thing for the University - we had to queue for 65 minutes for this. This morning I also had a meeting with my Director of Studies.
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Martin
Tags cambridge, churches, trinity