Confidence

I had a conversation with one of my friends from graduate school about a week ago. I told her about how well I’m doing in my classes but that I still had reservations about going to graduate school for statistics. I feel like my experience in graduate school made me lose confidence in my mathematical abilities. By the end, I didn’t feel like I had what it takes to be a mathematician. I don’t want history to repeat itself. I’m very afraid that going to graduate school for statistics will only show that I’m not cut out to be a statistician either.

My friend, however, sees things differently. She doesn’t think I lost my confidence. She thinks I never had it to begin with.

As an undergraduate, I had very good grades in my math classes, but I never did anything on my own. Whenever I had problems with homework, I would ask my professor, my TA, or my classmates. I never built the confidence to do the homework on my own. If I got stuck, I shut down and waited to ask for help. Once I got to graduate school, I was in a different world. Graduate students often collaborate, but confidence in your own abilities is necessary for success, and that’s something I never had.

My experience with statistics so far has been very different. I do all my homework on my own. I’m the one who helps others rather than the one who others help. I have always had self-confidence issues, but my confidence in being able to do statistics is pretty high (at least for now). My friend thinks I will do better and go further in statistics because of this one fact. She always thought I had the brains to do math but that I never had the confidence.

This time around, hopefully I have both.

Statistics

It all started two years ago.

I had just earned my master’s degree in mathematics, and I was still figuring out what I wanted to do with my life. I spent three solid months studying for the first actuarial exam. Even though I passed the exam, I wasn’t really sure that the actuary path is what I wanted. I soon became sidetracked by Target (and eventually started working for my current company), so I dropped studying for the second exam.

Throughout college and graduate school, I shied away from studying applied math. I didn’t do applied math. I was a purist. It wasn’t until I studied for the first actuarial exam (on probability) that I discovered how interesting applied math could be.

Since then, I’ve noticed statistics (the discrete application of probability) arise in all sorts of situations, conversations, and problems. Nearly every industry has some need for statistics, so there definitely seems to be a demand for statisticians.

So this is the path, for now. I actually took the day off from work today to check out a local university to see if I can take certain undergraduate courses through their concurrent enrollment program. The classes seem to be (beyond) full, but there’s a chance I could get in if I go to the first day of classes and get approval from the course instructors. If I can take undergraduate prerequisites now, I should be able to apply to graduate school for admission in Fall 2010.

My decision to pursue this statistics path/idea was tentatively made less than a week ago, so I’m still wrapping my head around everything. I keep having pangs of fear and hesitation (like “I can’t believe I’m going back to school,” “what the heck am I doing,” and “do I even have what it takes to get a degree in statistics”), but the few friends I’ve told so far are supportive, which helps a lot.

The first day of classes is this Friday, so I’d have to take another day off from work (two days in one week). If everything goes well, I’m not sure if I can keep my job; I’d basically have to take off three days a week. Breaking the news to my boss and big boss will be difficult but ultimately necessary.

Like In Entourage

Over the weekend, I went to a club in Hollywood with my sister to celebrate her birthday. She invited a large group of her friends and invited me to come too. I’m not a big clubber (and I’m usually against parties where I don’t know anyone), but I said yes because I’m trying to hang out with my sister more.

The club we went to was very fancy. It was like I was in an episode of Entourage, except that I didn’t see any celebrities. I had told my sister that I don’t really dance, so she made me her photographer for the evening. It worked out: I didn’t know anyone anyway, so being a photographer was less awkward than just standing around being a quiet observer.

I ended up drinking more than I was planning to (partly to save my sister from drinking all the drinks that people kept buying for her), but I think that helped loosen me up as the night wore on. I had a good time. We stayed at the club until closing (2am), and I went home with my sister; I zonked out on her couch around 4am.

As fun as the club was, I was exhausted from it. I didn’t have a hangover (I’ve never had one actually), but I felt tired all day Sunday and even Monday. I don’t know how party people do it; I can barely handle one night, let alone every weekend.

By the way, Happy Square Root Day! I had to throw that in to show off my nerdy math side. Square Root Day only happens nine times every century!

18 Times 6

Last night, I helped count some inventory in the warehouse at work. Somehow though, I thought that 18 times 6 equaled 72. I remember multipying 18 and 2 together and then doubling it as a way to make the calculation easier. I didn’t realize that it was also a way to make it wrong.

I was so convinced that I had done the math correctly that I thought our inventory count was short 36 units. It wasn’t until this morning when someone else counted the items again that I saw my completely embarrassing mistake.

Given that I have a masters degree in math, I should be a lot better at math than most people. And yet, I constantly make careless arithmetic mistakes. It’s terrible. How could I not realize that 18 times 6 is 108?

Futurama Math

I spent the day with a good friend from high school. We went to the mall so he could go shopping for summer clothes. Afterwards, we hung out at my house and watched the Futurama movie Bender’s Big Score on DVD. I’ve always liked Futurama, and the movie was definitely true to the series. I highly recommend any fans of the show to check it out.

Included on the DVD is a math lecture called “Bite My Shiny Metal X,” which points out some of the references to mathematics throughout the movie and the entire series. The lecture mainly references spherical geometry, topology, and number theory. My favorite references were to Klein bottles, the number 1729 (the famous Ramanujan taxicab number), and .

I like Futurama even more now than I already did now that I know there is real mathematics in it! Just because I’m not pursuing math anymore doesn’t mean I’m not still a huge math nerd.

For more about Futurama and math, go to the official website Futurama Math. Math rocks!

More Than An Assistant

Today my friend/boss showed me some basic formulas on how our clients (resellers, basically) determine their selling prices for our products based on the costs we give them. In order to set new selling prices, we have to reverse the formulas to figure out the new costs we should be charging the clients.

While my friend/boss was inputting the formulas into a spreadsheet, I noticed that he oversimplified the reverse formulas (he wasn’t following basic fraction rules). I fixed his mistake! Who thought math would come in handy in business?

Later on in the day, I also noticed that my friend/boss was missing some important information from a few vital spreadsheets he gave me to work on. One of the first things my friend/boss taught me is to not assume things. Just because my friend/boss made the spreadsheets doesn’t mean that they are necessarily complete and/or accurate.

Today was a good day for me. Last week, I felt like I’m just my friend/boss’s assistant, but today I felt more like I’m actually working with him (which is what he wanted anyway).

Now that I’m getting the hang of things, though, he’s probably going to start giving me more responsibilities. I should be excited that I’m doing well (I think) and that my friend/boss is putting his faith in me, but I’m still really scared that I’m going to fail and/or disappoint him.

I Don’t Charge Friends

I don’t want to talk about my interview until I know how I did. I’m not really superstitious, but I don’t want to jinx myself. The store team leader said he would meet with my store team leader and the district team leader tomorrow and let me know ”what the next step is” early next week.

Meanwhile, one of my friends at work needs help in math. She’s taking the GED exam next week. I helped her a little bit during her break at work, and we’re meeting tomorrow to have a proper tutoring session. I’m not going to charge her for my services, though. I don’t like to charge friends, and I’m pretty sure she’s not expecting (or able) to pay me.

Tutoring, whether paid or unpaid, is always a good learning experience for me. I like tutoring, and I’m just glad to be able to help.

The Power Of One

It’s amazing the effect one person can have on a life.

When I started college, I had no idea what I wanted to major in. I wasn’t really interested in anything until I took a linear algebra class. My professor was so passionate about the subject that it sparked the love of math in me. From then on, I found math incredibly interesting, and I wanted to learn everything about it. I declared my major that same semester. I decided I would go to graduate school, get a Ph.D., and stay in academia forever, all because of what I gained from my interactions with that one professor.

Then, in graduate school, I had an advisor who was not as supportive as I would have hoped. In hindsight, I think he was supportive in his own way, but our personalities and expectations of each other clashed. As a result, my confidence in my mathematical abilities was diminished, and my dreams of becoming a math professor faded. I stuck with it for three years and got a master’s degree, but in the end I felt I wasn’t cut out to be a mathematician. It’s difficult to say whether I would have been able to get a Ph.D. had I had a different advisor, but there’s no way to know.

Despite the struggles I had with my advisor (and with math in general), I look back on graduate school with only fond memories. The friends I made and all the good times we had trumped all the difficulties that came along. One friend in particular was always there to pick me up when I was down. I don’t think I would have been able to make it through graduate school without her friendship.

Whenever she needs me (and even when she doesn’t), I’ll always be there for her. Knowing there is at least one person always on your side can make all the difference.

Private Tutoring

One of my team leaders at Target is taking a math course at a nearby community college. He knows I have a master’s degree in math, so he asked me to tutor him tonight.

We met up at a Barnes and Noble, and we stayed there for three and a half hours. That’s a long time for a tutoring session, but he needed the help. The math he’s learning is not very advanced (I think I learned it in junior high), but it still takes practice and concentration to learn.

Tutoring my team leader got me thinking about tutoring as a career. Not to brag, but I surprised myself with how patient I was with him. I really enjoy tutoring, and I’m far more patient with my students than many other tutors.

Private tutoring can easily add up to a lot of money as well. For the record, though, I didn’t tutor my team leader for the money. I actually undercharged him quite a bit. I usually give a discount to friends.

The problem with tutoring is that the number of hours I work would be uncertain. Since I’m not affiliated with any school, no one would know me at first. It would be hard to build a reputation and bring in tutees. After a while, I guess, I would get referrals and build a little business out of it.

In the end, tutoring seems more like a second job than a primary one. But since my schedule at Target changes every week, it would be hard to tutor regularly while still keeping my current job. I think I’m going to wait for the store team leader to get back to me about the ETL position and go from there.

I Suck At Pool

I ended up going to the bar to see my friends last night. We did some minimal drinking and played pool. I’m unbelievably bad at pool. Many people say I should be good at pool because of my math background, but no. I suck. While I understand the angles and physics involved in pool, I can’t apply any of it. That’s why I studied pure math, not applied math. Meanwhile, my friends are pretty good at pool, which makes me suck even more by comparison.

My friends and I only hung out for about two and a half hours, but I’m really glad I decided to go. Target was extra busy last night (the Friday before Valentine’s Day), so I had to work extra hard to help guests. I was really tired by the end of my shift, but I reenergized when I saw my friends. Catching up with my college friends is always a blast.