Courses

I took four courses this semester.

MATH 411: Commutative Algebra. This was a strange experience. I nailed the take-home (problem-solving based) exams and totally bombed the in-class (memorization based) exams, which was the opposite of literally everyone else. Also I thought my grade was dead so I did really well in the last month (perfect on multiple psets + final), only to find out an end-of-semester curve probably meant I probably had an A all along...
MATH 497: Geometry and Quantum Theory. My favorite class. We read Quantum Theory From A Geometric Viewpoint, lecture notes from a graduate topics course from UT Austin/Harvard. At the end, we put together a writeup based on what we’d learned.
STAT 342: Stochastic Processes. No comment.
ARTH 102: History of Western Art II. I really enjoyed the conference sections where we walked around the Clark Art Institute. I found the lectures and exams less interesting, mostly because the classroom was very dark and the material relied too heavily on memorization.

In addition, I audited a course:

CSCI 326: Algorithmic Game Theory. A well-taught, solid course overall. I just wish it had gone deeper into more advanced math.

I attended MATH 389: Advanced Analysis for a couple of weeks but ended up dropping it, as the material wasn’t particularly interesting.

Lastly, I TA'ed a course:

MATH 250: Linear Algebra. TAing was much more relaxed than I expected. I definitely enjoyed interacting with students more than grading.

Other

Here are some other things I did:

Research. For my research project with Professor Yang on the representation theory of Lie algebras, I presented at two events (HRUMC, UAlbany Showcase) and won a Minerva Center Undergraduate Research Award. Hopefully paper soon...
Soergel Bimodules. For my directed reading project with Grant Barkley, I wrote an expository paper titled Fiebig’s Correspondence Between Soergel Bimodules and Braden-MacPherson Sheaves.
IMC Prosperity. I played IMC Prosperity, an online algorithmic trading competition. Competing solo against over 12,000+ teams (each with up to five members), I ranked #47 in the U.S. and #151 globally. Balancing this alongside numerous other commitments was challenging, but I’m generally happy with how things went.

Spring break was relaxing.

The highlight was when nocredit visited NYC. We walked horizontally across NYC to Pier 17, looked at books in McNally Jackson Books, and ate truffle pizza at Frenchman's Dough.
Besides that, I didn't do much. I visited an arboretum and ate out a lot, but nothing too out of the ordinary. With summer research decisions coming out around that time, I didn’t want to get too hectic.

It’s been a year of college. It didn’t meet my expectations. But that's ok. I have 3 more years to figure it out.

I'm excited for summer!