Adventures of a Woman in Mathematics

I am a recent PhD graduate in mathematics trying to regain some semblance of a life.

[galculus]

With graduation a couple weeks ago, the other math professor was asked how many students he’s had in his 20 year career.

Witnessing that question, I decided I needed to gather that information before I deleted old files to help with figuring that out.

Today I gathered the information into a spreadsheet.

I was not prepared.

1077

I knew I’d be close to 1000. I didn’t know I’d be over already.

4 schools. 8 years. 18 semesters. 12 “unique” courses. 39 classes. Average of 60 students a semester.

And I still feel like I have no idea what I’m doing. (kidding. mostly.)

[tinyyellowflowers-blog]

Went to the grocery store with my kindergartener. We weighed some bananas: 2 pounds even. We weighed a watermelon: 4 pounds even. We weighed some mangos: a little over 1 pound. We weighed the watermelon AND the bananas: 6 pounds even.

“That’s funny” said the child “because 2+4=6 and two pounds and four pounds is six pounds. It’s like the same as math!”

“What happens if you add 6+1?”

“SEVEN”

“What if we put one pound of mangos on the scale?” <mangos added>

“IT’S THE SAME!!”

“OK, what’s 7-4?”

“Three?”

“What if we take the four pound watermelon off the scale?” <watermelon removed>

“Mama! Are you telling me math works In Real Life? Think of all the things you could measure!!”

[davinki-2000]

Kant explaining how math is synthetic a priori

[galculus]

That moment when you sit down to write a simple email to a couple of students and then realize 40 minutes later you still haven’t sent the email because you’ve been bombarded with other emails that need to be responded to promptly. 

Anyway…

I had to look back through my email today to find something from over a year ago and wow did I receive far fewer emails pre-COVID. I miss that.

[galculus]

I’m scrolling through all my past posts because nostalgia.

and I’d like to tell past me a few things:

It gets so much worse. Like it basically reaches a point where you tense up in fear every time you hear an email chime, even when you are no where near you computer so it absolutely could not be your computer.

and then it gets better. You start teaching at a small school where you get maybe 5 emails a day. Like today I told students they needed to use email more for communication.

I sincerely hope this isnt a sinusoidal pattern. Please no.

[galculus]

Which is more annoying

students leaving the little frills on the notebook paper they turn in

students stapling the top right corner instead of the top left

Voting ended onFeb 18

[galculus]

This is what I expected.

but I also feel like those that voted for the frills haven’t had students staple the wrong corner and it shows.

(kidding, both annoyances are valid)

[galculus]

Ah, the fresh smell of formaldehyde in the morning

[bubbloquacious]

The average person probably only knows that the 3-sphere is a union of two solid tori joined along their boundary. And the non-orientability of the Klein bottle, of course.

[bubbloquacious]

Everybody say thank you xkcd 2501 generator

[galculus]

Which is more annoying

students leaving the little frills on the notebook paper they turn in

students stapling the top right corner instead of the top left

Voting ended onFeb 18

[galculus]

I love and missed snow.

I did.

but “I’m sorry. We can’t open the door for you to get off the plane because the jet bridge can’t get enough traction to make it to connect to the door.”

(The bad weather seems to keep following me. Hurricane hitting a part of the state that never gets hurricanes last year then a snow storm that we will have to wait and see just how epic proportions it truly turns out to be…)

[galculus]

Today in proofs, I drew a Venn diagram and the answer to one of the problems I had made up was {6,7}

And I didn’t see it coming until just before I asked the question with that answer. But I did see it coming before my students.

and to all my middle school and high school teacher friends: no where is safe. Not even in a college classroom filled with socially awkward math majors.

but seriously, in all the trends I’ve seen over the years, this appears most harmless. I will take whatever 67 is over “jokes” about eating tide pods every single day.

[galculus]

Today I lived my literal nightmare

I’ve had many a nightmare about not having enough exams for students or forgetting to bring exams to the final or being late to give an exam.

And today, as I was passing out exams, I realized that I printed the wrong number (printed my smaller class number instead of the bigger class number)

and guess what?

it was okay.

I lived.

I had printed enough of the second part of the exam. (Yay me)

so I passed out the second half, printed more of the first half, and asked a colleague to go get them off the printer while I proctored.

Nightmares are rough. Living them is terrible.

But you are strong. You will survive them. I believe in you, even when you don’t believe in yourself.

[galculus]

Things that should not have happened:

A former employee at a school becoming a mentor to a current employee at said school because no one else at said school will tell the current employee how things work.

Things that did happen:

That.

[galculus]

Which would you prefer:

proctoring exams (not including finals) for 11 total hours during a semester

or

proctoring exams (including finals) for 7 total hours during a semester.

If this question had been asked to me 3 years ago, I would have said 7 hours. And this… is an example of *not having all the information*

[galculus]

Yall.

Proctoring an exam for 10 students is so chill. I forgot how chill proctoring an exam can be.

Like none of this 170 students in a room with at most 3 proctors and students complaining to my supervisor that I didn’t give that one specific student my full and undivided attention during the exam. I had like less than 5 questions from students. And if I answer a question wrong, that’s my problem and not the problem of 1001 students and instructors.

It’s glorious

[galculus]

Gave my students in an intro to proofs class an assignment with the instructions that to get full credit, they must copy down the problem and not just give me a solution. Ya know… teaching them that when they prove something, they need to be clear what they are proving. Teaching them to be good mathematicians and all that jazz.

Well, I’m grading said assignments and only one student didn’t follow those instructions. And I found myself whispering as I flipped through “only one student didn’t understand the assignment”

… and I don’t know if I meant it literally or ironically.

[galculus]

“You look happier.”

Thanks. I’ve taught for a week at a school that in 3 days has taught me what it’s like to actually be appreciated as an instructor and human being and actually checks in on me rather than treat me as a cog in a machine. Plus I’ve been given actual freedom over my classes so I can pace things how I want and teach things how I want and don’t have to match my teaching style to another instructors standard and material, which shows itself in my ability to interact with students.

A few notes from this week:

The class I’ve been most scared of had ACTUAL CLASS PARTICIPATION AND QUESTIONS TODAY!! like I had students work in groups and… THEY ACTUALLY DID!

My department chair got me flowers for the first day to “brighten my office and wish me luck”

Every single faculty in every single department has been welcoming and kind.

I have 4 preps which is a lot of work, but already it has been a greater joy than any other other teaching situation I’ve been in. And I loved my grad school situation.

but also I have 1/3 of the the students I had last semester.

I literally walked by a Biology class waiting to start their syllabus day and the Biology professor was like “come hang out with us! Have yall met our new math professor? She’s great!”

The other biology professor has multiple times complimented what he hears during my teaching (across the hall from his office) and stated how thankful the whole school is for me being here. And this is the professor that after the first day of truly meeting him I had already clocked as one of the “crabby” people in the building.

“if they wanted to they would” doesn’t only apply to romantic or even familial relationships. It also applies to work settings.

[galculus]

New job, new colleagues:

overheard while working on my new classes:

“Oh Good! You can help me!”

“I’d love to help you!!!”

“Please help me take the beaver down.”

“no.”

[galculus]

“Okay, when did we get an alligator”

[galculus]

New job, new colleagues:

overheard while working on my new classes:

“Oh Good! You can help me!”

“I’d love to help you!!!”

“Please help me take the beaver down.”

“no.”