Joint Meetings, Day 3

The last post's guest author, Jeff Breeding, has been kind enough to also share with us his impressions and experiences from Friday, January 7, at the Joint Mathematics Meetings. Stay tuned for more blog posts from this event! Here is Jeff's post:

I awoke early to attend some number theory talks and then went off to a brunch for those who received funding from the AMS. They gave us 1 GB thumb drives loaded with a sacred text. I sat at a table with other graduate students on the job market as well as the President-elect of the AMS, Eric Friedlander. We chatted for a bit about jobs and what the AMS could do to help graduate students to prepare for these meetings. He took a great interest in what the AMS could do to offer more support to mathematics students.

After the brunch, I returned to my hotel to join other OU graduate students to lunch with the external reviewer. We dined in the restaurant in the hotel and discussed various aspects of our mathematics department.

Following the brunch, I went to a talk by Joe Silverman on elliptic curves. One of the great things about these large conferences is that you can see some of the prominent experts in your favorite areas of mathematics.

My only interview of the conference was scheduled at 2:00 with the NSA. I strolled down to the employment center and entered the applicant waiting area, where I discovered someone I knew from UIUC. We sat waiting for our respective interviewers to mysteriously materialize and ominously trumpet our names. My interviewer appeared and beckoned me to the interview tables. I talked with a couple of people from the Department of Defense about what employment in the NSA entailed. They stressed that it had an environment similar to the academic one that I have been accustomed to at Oklahoma with an active seminar culture. They mentioned a gathering of NSA mathematicians at 6:00 in the Marriott and I took note.

I went back to my hotel room to change to civilian clothes then left for Sarah Marsh's talk. Returning to the hotel to bide my time, I got a phone call from the NSA shortly before the 6:00 powwow informing me that the interview went well and they would like to see me again the next day. Jubilantly I proceeded to their suite to visit with some NSA mathematicians. The ones I chatted with were very enthusiastic and I got a better impression about life in the NSA.