small update

[nibot]

Yesterday Diane and I went to the first class of Spanish 1A at Vista. The professor seems pretty fun(ny) but the whole 2-hour first session was dedicated to him blathering on about how hard the course would be, in order to get people to drop. Hmm. Then we saw What Alice Found with Rebekah and Stevie at Landmark Act 1&2. Last week we toured the Scharffen Berger chocolate factory in Berkeley with Matt (ankaerith) and Dina. Last weekend Kenny, Michelle, Diane, and I went on a super-nifty hike up in the Berkeley Hills' fire trails.

It looks like I will be boarding in a frat in the very soon upcoming future. Not sure which one yet, but I have a bunch of leads. Tomorrow I'm going to go visit a bunch of them. I think it will be a great sociological experiment... from the gay house to the frat house! and before that I lived with a bunch of orthodox jews, and before that I lived in a swedish dorm. Amusingly, one of my housemates said, "ooh, there are such cute boys there! You can be my 'in' to [three greek letters]!"

I've been reading more about phonons. There's a great entry on Phonons in the Wikipedia (actually the whole wikipedia is astonishingly useful; it's an open-source encyclopedia, and I often find it more useful than Mathworld for physics/math topics). I'm really shocked that phonons (which, remember, are vibrational modes in a crystal) can be considered spin-2 bosons! I think understanding phonons and their friends will lead to a much better understanding of field theory and wave-particle duality in general. In EE117 (electromagnetism) the professor showed some network of springs as a model for the propagation of waves/photons, and suddenly it's making a bit more sense.

There's a class this semester on C*-algebras. I got the book from the library, and I'm curious if I'll be able to follow along, despite being blatantly underqualified. Probably not, but the course description is pretty exciting: "The theory of operator algebras grew out of the needs of quantum mechanics, but by now also has strong interactions with many other areas of mathematics. ... t I will somewhat emphasize examples which go in the directions of my current research interests, which involve certain mathematical issues which arise in string theory and related high-energy physics. Thus one thread which will run through the course will be to see what the various concepts look like for quantum tori, which are the most accessible non-commutative differential manifolds." Similarly, I'm debating taking Math 140 (Metric Differential Geometry) because I'd kind-of sort-of secretly like to get on the string theory track. In any case, the two courses I intend to take for-sure are Physics 141A (Solid State Physics) and Math 114 (Galois Theory, with Ken Ribet). You can check out my ridiculously ambitious schedule of courses I want to check out during the first week. (-:

On the software engineering front, I have a much better understanding of COM now, based mainly on reading Essential COM and working on the JEOL project, as detailed by my alter-ego nibot_lab. Also, thanks to hyperionab I found out about GeoURL, which I think is pretty nifty, and I plan on geo-coding all my pages on splorg dot org as soon as possible.

SF Cacophony is celebrating MLK day with a Peninsula Pub-Crawl: Do you commute on CalTrain every day and wonder what's going on in those communities you pass by every day? Well, we've got an afternoon of train-based exploration planned from San Francisco to San Jose, with numerous stops in between. We'll wander through San Mateo, Redwood City (Climate Best By Government Test), visit Steamies bar in Hillsdale (haven't you always wondered what that place is like?) and more. All this using only a single Caltrain Day Pass!. It's just $11 for a Caltrain daypass, plus booze money of course.. anyone wanna go??

Still reading Prisoner's Dilemma and Fresh Air Fiend sporadically.

Comments

My Suggestions

[calbruin.livejournal.com]

If you are doing Physics as a major, then you need Physics 110 and 112.
Drop the Spanish. If you really like or need the language, then you will learn it well enough on your own. Save the units for something that you really need or want. (Question: why Spanish? Why not something more interesting, for example, Arabic or Russian?)
If you have not taken Ribet before, then take him! He is a great math professor and his lectures are brillant. Warning!! He gives damn hard exams. (He loves to give trick problems.)
Me personally, I would take Math 140 (especially if you are a math major, this course will satisfy the geometry requirement) and Physics 139. The two to-gether will give you that General Relativity theme.


Ha! ha! You saw Incubus! Was not Shatner great? How was your Esperanto? Did you see the recent DVD release with Shatner's commentary as a special feature or just on VHS?

Re: My Suggestions

[nibot.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the comment, and the advice. I actually graduated already, in EECS, and am taking courses for my own interest and for continuing my way towards grad school, perhaps in Physics. I want to take Ribet's class because I've heard he's a great professor and because the subject sounds interesting. But if Ribet weren't teaching it, I'd probably be in Combinatorics (seems interesting too, and I don't know the subject too well) or Metric Differential Geometry. I'll sort things out exactly after attending all these classes in the first week. The other trick is that I have to work enough to pay for room and board (~ $600/month) and my courses (nearly $200/unit!!).

I like the idea of the Relativity-theme, although I think I'm going to go for a Condensed-Matter theme this semester: Phys 141A Solid State Physics, Phys H190 honors seminar (topic: "quantum mechanical behavior of many-body systems," e.g. solid state physics), and I am working in a solid state physics lab (sort of). I don't have any particular interest in solid state stuff per se, but it seems I should take advantage of the confluence of offerings and learn the material. (-:

I want to learn Spanish for the purposes of travel in Latin America. I may or may not continue with the course, but I think it's worthwhile. I already learned Swedish to the beginnings of fluency. I have a desire to learn some scholarly language(s), like French, German, and/or Russian, but Spanish is on top of the list for practical purposes. Arabic would certainly be cool, too.. I started attending Arabic and German a year ago but it was just too intense for my level of interest.

The real practical question is, should I attend Math 140 or Physics 112 during the first week of class? They're at the same time. None of my other courses of interest are in conflict. Phys 112 fits into the solid state theme, but I think it might be worth checking out M140 instead. One thing I have to admit, is that I'm very bad with differential equations!! I know, bad for a would-be physics student to admit, but the silly thing is that the only dif eq's in my coursework were stuffed into the last two weeks of Math 54!

Oh yeah, Incubus was crazy. Didn't check out the Shatner commentary, though... gee, that must be priceless. What does he say? I understood a lot of the Esperanto, enough to hear that the accents were mind-bogglingly atrocious. I started writing to a prospective Esperanto pen-pal today but got mixed up when I did know how to make an infinitive phrase (like, "I think it would be fun to go swimming" - "Mi opinas ke ĝis estu amuza ke naĝi"?).

Re: My Suggestions

[calbruin.livejournal.com]

Hmm...Between Math 140 and Physics 112. Well, I am expressing my bias here, but I definitely recommend going for Math 140. Mind you, I suspect the course will be more computational than theoretical (i.e. more like a calculus for physicists than how Gravitation presented more theoretical concepts on differential geometry).
Physics 112 is stats. If you like stats, then you will enjoy Thermodynamics. I hated studying Thermo and I hate Stats a little more. (Thank, God. Stats or Probability is not on the Basics exam ~ Berkeley's Math Department Prelim.)

Re: My Suggestions

[shamster.livejournal.com]

You've graduated but haven't been accepted into a grad program as of yet... You are not an undergrad or a grad... how are you taking classes?

Re: My Suggestions

[nibot.livejournal.com]

Basically, because nobody is stopping me. You can take courses for credit at UC if there's space available through extension, or just audit courses.

Re: My Suggestions

[shamster.livejournal.com]

SOOOoooooooo...

Is it treated like a community college program in that anyone can attend classes for the right price?

Re: My Suggestions

[nibot.livejournal.com]

If a course is not full, you can register via UC Extension (http://www.unex.berkeley.edu/). Here's what they have to say:

Through UC Berkeley Extension you may enroll in some regular UC Berkeley campus courses through an option called "concurrent enrollment." To be accepted in a concurrent course, all prerequisites for the course must be met. To enroll, you must obtain the consent of the instructor, the head of the campus department, and, in some cases, the dean of the department's school or college. Any other course requirements must also be met, such as a transcript of study. Enrollment must be for credit. You are considered an Extension student when enrolled through concurrent enrollment. Extension's Registrar maintains your records of study. Being accepted for a concurrent course does not constitute admission to UC Berkeley as a regular student.

It costs nearly something like $750 to register for a regular 4 unit course. There are various restrictions... you can't take the place of a regularly enrolled Berkeley student, you cannot apply credit from graduate-level courses in Extension to a UC Graduate program, you don't get insurance, you don't get a library card, etc. There are ways around many of these restrictions (if you join the alumni association, you get library privileges, etc).

Re: My Suggestions

[shamster.livejournal.com]

How does that compare to the normal undergrad registration fees?

Also - what's a good way to formulate a statement of purpose for applications?

Re: My Suggestions

[nibot.livejournal.com]

How does that compare to the normal undergrad registration fees?

Extension definitely costs more and gives you less. In theory, it's equivalent to out-of-state tuition, and you get no student services. I'm not sure if I'm actually going to register.. I don't think I can afford it, and I don't really mind not getting credit.

Also - what's a good way to formulate a statement of purpose for applications?

I'm not really sure.. I'm still not satisfied with mine, and it's gone through a major revision for each school I've applied to. I have some good links, though, which I'll post sometime. It's hard, because all the things that come to mind first (like, "Since the age of X, I've wanted to be Y") are considered inane.

Re: My Suggestions

[shamster.livejournal.com]

I've started writing in chemsitry jokes (a la: "There's only 3 uses for radio waves in chemistry - Music and talk shows on your car stereo, and NMR") and telling people how I love arcane and backwards sciences that have a superficial appearance of triviality. (Oops, did I just obfuscate?) Trying to find atleast one sentence per paragraph that isn't as cliche as the rest of my life. Also, because the reviewers are going to be chemistry geeks (in my case) they will appreciate that only chemistry geeks will write geeky jokes in their statements... does that ring true?

Re: My Suggestions

[nibot.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that sounds good.. you're always clever with that sort of thing. Where are you applying? And, for what?

Re: My Suggestions

[shamster.livejournal.com]

Currently working on an application for an ACS program in radio+nuclear chemistry at one of two campuses (san jose or NY state). Also sending in to UofO, Eugene, and UCSC for their REU and SURF programs in p-chem and o-chem respectively. My current research advisor was an advisee for the program director in Oregon so he contacted her directly and put in good words. Not sure about that program just because it doesn't seem to me to be anything but a summer fling. The ACS program promises (on their website) to continue research for DoE labs throughout the year and then into some grad program...