Just to have this out for people to look at, here is my honors thesis from my degree. It is broadly about some of the mathematics behind a particular phenomenon in quantum mechanics.
Thesis
Thesis Formatted as a Book
Switching Things Up
I recently graduated from college, and while I may touch on that or write a longer post about my experience and what that means for me, all it means in the context of this post is I now have free time.
While I objectively had less “scheduled” time during college, I always felt that I needed to be doing something towards my degree and my future. I only read a handful of books for fun during those four years, as I felt it imperative that I instead spend the time working on my programming skills or looking through math textbooks. I did not want to “waste time”, and this greatly affected how I spread myself out.
I will be moving onto a full-time job fairly soon, and while this obviously eats up a chunk of every day, it is a consistent chunk. I know the time I have left, and all that time is spent on projects that I am invested in. I get to decide on what to do. This summer, I’ve finally gotten back into reading. I’m also hoping to record my podcast more frequently, especially now that I have taken over editing duties. I began playing baseball again (kind of) and playing music a bit more. There is a lot I can finally begin to do which I put off during my time in college.
What that means for my writing here, is that I’m going to try and post consistently. My plan is to write a post every week. There is truth to the idea that making a schedule out of something takes the fun out of it, but I know I am the sort of person who needs deadlines to be productive. My goal is to post on Mondays (as I am doing now).
I’ve also removed my Facebook link to this website, so I don’t have an effective way to share it. This was mainly to take pressure off of the writing process. If those who have read it in the past stumble on it again, that’s great. But this is just meant to be a place to put my normal “personal” writing, while allowing it to technically be accessible for those who care. If it obtains a following, that will happen organically.
The posts are going to vary as widely as the current posts do. Sometimes it will just be a small piece of math that I find interesting. It may be an explanation of how I work, or what I do in my free time. I want to keep it open, and allow a slog of a week to have a shorter post like this (sub 500 words).
For anyone who comes across this, you now have a bit of context for the posts that will (or will not) appear in the future.
Drafts and Completion
I’ve been struggling a lot over the past few months in starting a new post, or a new piece of writing for myself, and faltering a few paragraphs in, not sure what to do with myself. A large part of this, as was mentioned in a previous post, is due to my habit of editing as I write. I don’t often plan my writing ideas, put them in some flow chart or other organizational structure, or summarize the points I want to make before I write. This helps keep my writing natural, and keep its place as a release valve rather than work. This also puts me in the position of sitting down with what seems to be a well-formulated idea, only to have it peter out faster than anticipated.
I recently had a conversation with someone who pointed out that this isn’t necessarily bad, as it still shows that I’m thinking about these topics. I start to second-guess my own thoughts. It also means that I am still writing, even if the finished product does not get produced as prolifically as I would ideally have it. All this has led me to think about the importance of completing projects in life, and to what extent my large folder of draft documents can be justified and excused.
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Pushing and Pulling
Over the past 6 months or so, the idea of pushing and pulling in education has been on my mind. What I mean by this is whether we should focus on pushing kids who are achieving in a particular subject as much as we can — advanced study in mathematics and reading, honors classes, extracurricular options — or focus on pulling kids up who have struggled in some subjects. I have been intrigued by this dichotomy in the education system precisely because I have seen both sides of it, and it makes me feel conflicted.
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Fun Coin Flips
I learned an interesting fact in my Stochastic Processes class the other day, and IÂ managed to come up with an easier way to present it than using Markov chains (which are really cool, but not conducive to making a good blog post).
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Qualifications
Much of the rhetoric that has been pervasive over the past year, and especially with the election of President Trump, is related to how much value society places on qualifications when it comes to hiring and listening to people to help run the government.
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The Right Tool
As I have progressed through college I have found it necessary to look for and invest in the right tools for the tasks I have at hand. I think it is important to be aware of how I work, and test out ways to improve my efficiency.
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First Drafts
The way that I approach a first draft is not quite the same way that other (more experienced and successful) people approach one. The general advice is to hack through it without looking back. Particularly in writing, it is important to not focus on any grammatical errors, any misspelled words or issues with flow. One needs to get all of their ideas onto the page before they can hope to begin the process of refining those ideas.
I do the opposite.
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