Organizing my organizations

Posted on October 7, 2011 by Melanie Laffin
As a graduate student for the past two years, I’ve had the opportunity to have an a free or significantly reduced fee membership for the AMS, MAA, Association for Women in Mathematics, Association for Computing Machinery and SIAM. While I am proud to be a member of these organizations, I feel that I hardly use any of the benefits that come with them. For instance, in addition to getting discounts for conference registrations, many of these associations contain a vast collection of instructive material for their members. However, I cannot honestly say that I use any of these resources nor really make any time to read the periodicals, a position that most people in graduate school can agree with.What professional organizations do you belong to and what are some of their benefits? Are there some organizations that are especially good for graduate students? How important is it career-wise to be members of these organizations, or is it mostly for fun?Looking forward to hearing what you think in the comments.

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My summer doing math on the beach in Thailand

Posted on October 4, 2011 by Luke Wolcott

I took a leave of absence in the spring quarter, in order to focus on my graduate research. So from March to June I stayed put, and averaged 38 hours per week of productive math – on a beach in Thailand. Distractions were few. Wireless internet (yes, on the beach) allowed me to stay in touch, and video-chat with my advisor occasionally. Continue reading →

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The Work Life Balance

Posted on October 2, 2011 by Kareem Carr

I recently came across an article on the Nature website. The article was called Work ethic: The 24/7 lab. It discussed the ways in which some labs are filled with people who spend much longer periods of times at work than others. As might be expected, there is a large variation in the working styles of various scientists (even the hardworking ones).

From a practical point of view, it makes absolute sense that if one wants to produce more, then one ought to spend longer periods of times working. On the other hand, I believe strongly that there are certain points at which overwork in the short term leads to less work in the long term. I believe that there are physiological and psychological constraints on what we can put ourselves through and it’s important to work as hard as you can work while remaining productive, but no harder. Continue reading →

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WW2 Computerettes

Posted on September 24, 2011 by Melanie Laffin

While I was procrastinating the other day, I came across a documentary entitled Top Secret Rosies: Female computers of WW2. Now, I am competent enough to know that “computers” referred to people. During World War II it was largely women who took over most of the industrial jobs in the nation, so I thought this documentary was worth watching. Continue reading →

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Math Jokes

Posted on September 23, 2011 by Tyler Clark

I think we could all use a little laughter to help us continue through our studying. I was reading through Carrie Eaton’s Twitter (http://twitter.com/#!/mathprofcarrie) page yesterday and found a quite humorous joke.

x, x^2 and e^x were in a bar. e^x looked sad. x and x^2 said, “hey e^x, come integrate with us!” e^x sighed, “it won’t change anything…”

Have you seen or heard any humorous math jokes lately?

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