Fifth Term at Oxford

Having been through the second term of my second year, here are some of my thoughts about it.

9 to 5

I’ve been trying to make my work 9 to 5, 6 days a week. In essence this is to prepare for a future when I’d be responsible for motivating and doing my own work. I think it would be essential to have a consistent schedule so as not to let work overflow into life.

So far it’s been nice that I (usually) don’t have to think about maths after 5.

Applied mathematics

Throughout the last two years, I’ve had difficulty finding value in applied mathematics courses. Personally I believe it’s because applied mathematics courses tends to overwhelm me with calculations that I don’t have time to consider other important aspects of the theory: The physical systems the mathematics is supposed to describe, what assumptions are set, the flaws of those assumptions …

I realise now that if I have put more effort into untangling those aspects, there would be far more meaning into the calculations that I’m been doing.

Unfortunately considering my interest lies in purer sides of mathematics, I believe that this is the end of applied mathematics for me in my undergraduate studies.

Course choices

For now, I’ve decided that it’s important for me to aim for training in all traditional foundational aspects of mathematics through my undergraduate degree. I.e. I would be doing a bit of algebra, analysis, geometry, topology instead of focusing on any one of them. The only (relatively) missing bits in my education seem to be probability, differential equations and applied mathematics.

Culture scene @ Oxford

On a more casual note, I’ve started engaging more with the culture scene at Oxford: Every Brilliant Thing, Only Murders at the BT, … It’s been really exciting so far! I’ve been amazed at how professional student-run performances generally are.