As you all know... I was invited to give a mathematical talk about my recently co-authored paper. I was so nerve-struck thinking about presenting my results to a crowd of mathematical buffs and I honestly did not prepare as much as I hoped since I am also working on an REU project, which invested most of my summer time.
The day of my talk, I met up with my professor before my scheduled time to rehearse the talk, and man... I swear I was stuttering and saying "Um" countless of times during my one run. He gave me a few suggestions to improve my talk (mainly focusing on my choices of words), but not enough to comfort me entirely. I spent the remaining three to five hours practicing to myself. It's funny how I can speak mathematics to myself fluently but not so fluently to others.
Before my talk, I decided to attend a few other talks to observe how they are presenting their subject matter. The main theme of the session that I attended is number theory (the field of math that I plan on pursuing after my undergraduate years), so the content itself is engaging. Then I unfortunately had to leave early to go to my room, and mentally prepare myself seconds before I began.
Then, I gave my talk. And surprisingly I said "Um" only once! Other than that, I was confident overall and content with my overall performance.
Today I was at the awards ceremony for Mathfest, thinking to myself... "lmfaooo not going to win cash prize lololololol." I sat with a group of friends that I made here in Mathfest conversing with them as we eat our fine meal (I feel so classy overall hahaha). Moments later, the award ceremony began and they gave each presenter a certificate for presenting something in Mathfest. Then the cash prizes were rewarded and surprisingly enough, I was one of the award recipients! I was stunned, walked up to the front of the room, shook hands with the President of the Pi Mu Epsilon Honor Society and received my $150 cash prize and a number theory book.
I am still stunned as I'm writing this. What a pleasant surprise.
On a side note, I also toured around UWisconsin at Madison with my advising professor (the other co-author of the recently published paper) who received his Ph.D there. He bought me a strawberry smoothie so that's very nice of him. I also attended Melanie Wood's number theory lecture after the award ceremony and enjoyed that as well! I plan on emailing her to discuss about what she presented later today. I also received my reimbursements that they promised immediately after the talk, so the entire trip was funded by them!
Lastly, I met HammyMcSquirrel here at Madison! We got delicious Thai food and I had my first Dairy Queen ice cream! I will be hanging out with him for the majority of the day tomorrow! (: Yay for meeting my second FFRiend ever!! Hopefully I'll meet some of you one day!
Overall, I had a great experience here at Madison! I should probably work on my REU project at some point tomorrow but for now, I'm going to relax for the rest of the night! Pictures of my stay here at Madison will be uploaded once PME uploads them on their Facebook page haha.
On the road to success! I can't wait to see what lies beyond my mathematical career ((:
The day of my talk, I met up with my professor before my scheduled time to rehearse the talk, and man... I swear I was stuttering and saying "Um" countless of times during my one run. He gave me a few suggestions to improve my talk (mainly focusing on my choices of words), but not enough to comfort me entirely. I spent the remaining three to five hours practicing to myself. It's funny how I can speak mathematics to myself fluently but not so fluently to others.
Before my talk, I decided to attend a few other talks to observe how they are presenting their subject matter. The main theme of the session that I attended is number theory (the field of math that I plan on pursuing after my undergraduate years), so the content itself is engaging. Then I unfortunately had to leave early to go to my room, and mentally prepare myself seconds before I began.
Then, I gave my talk. And surprisingly I said "Um" only once! Other than that, I was confident overall and content with my overall performance.
Today I was at the awards ceremony for Mathfest, thinking to myself... "lmfaooo not going to win cash prize lololololol." I sat with a group of friends that I made here in Mathfest conversing with them as we eat our fine meal (I feel so classy overall hahaha). Moments later, the award ceremony began and they gave each presenter a certificate for presenting something in Mathfest. Then the cash prizes were rewarded and surprisingly enough, I was one of the award recipients! I was stunned, walked up to the front of the room, shook hands with the President of the Pi Mu Epsilon Honor Society and received my $150 cash prize and a number theory book.
I am still stunned as I'm writing this. What a pleasant surprise.
On a side note, I also toured around UWisconsin at Madison with my advising professor (the other co-author of the recently published paper) who received his Ph.D there. He bought me a strawberry smoothie so that's very nice of him. I also attended Melanie Wood's number theory lecture after the award ceremony and enjoyed that as well! I plan on emailing her to discuss about what she presented later today. I also received my reimbursements that they promised immediately after the talk, so the entire trip was funded by them!
Lastly, I met HammyMcSquirrel here at Madison! We got delicious Thai food and I had my first Dairy Queen ice cream! I will be hanging out with him for the majority of the day tomorrow! (: Yay for meeting my second FFRiend ever!! Hopefully I'll meet some of you one day!
Overall, I had a great experience here at Madison! I should probably work on my REU project at some point tomorrow but for now, I'm going to relax for the rest of the night! Pictures of my stay here at Madison will be uploaded once PME uploads them on their Facebook page haha.
On the road to success! I can't wait to see what lies beyond my mathematical career ((:
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