President: Nancy Ho
Vice President: Houssein El Turkey
Secretary: Salam Turki
Treasurer: Sean Bauer
Congratulations, all!
Vice President: Houssein El Turkey
Secretary: Salam Turki
Treasurer: Sean Bauer
Congratulations, all!
The last day of the conference began with saying goodbyes. A lot of people leave during the last day, including my roommate Kashyap. Towards the end of the day, there were only a few people attending talks. The last talk was at 5:40. I stayed until the end of a session whose second to last talk was given by someone I know from UIUC. There was a small reunion of Western Number Theory Conference participants, which was held a few weeks before. We said our goodbyes and that we'd probably see each other again at a future conference.
I returned to the hotel to go to the banquet, chatting with some retired professors and students, seemingly the only attendants of the banquet. The weather wasn't great. It was pouring rain and was very windy. I thought it wasn't that bad at first, being from Oklahoma and all, but there were some gusts that can remind you that the wind doesn't let anything stand in its way.
Overall, the joint meetings were a lot of fun and it was great to see a lot of people I met at other conferences. I also got to see a talk given by Joe Silverman. You can meet a lot of really famous mathematicians at the joint meetings and can see a wide variety of mathematics. That's whats great about these large meetings. However, I still feel that the best conferences to go to are the smaller ones.
This year's joint meetings had approximately 6000 participants by the end of it all. The AMS will soon offer funding for graduate and undergraduate students to go to the sectional meetings and I urge you to take advantage of this. It's important to get involved in the mathematical community and I think you can best participate by going to smaller conferences and workshops. Where can you find information on these? Well, the OU MGSA have links to several sites listing upcoming conferences, such as numbertheory.org.
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Sarah - Day 4 - Saturday, January 8
This morning, I started by going to a couple of faculty development talks before heading over to the retiring MAA president's address on the transition from high school to college mathematics. After this, I went to some history of math talks in the same building. My point in sharing these things is that I think sometimes it's important at large conferences to broaden our horizons and explore areas of the mathematical community that we don't have access to at our individual schools. It can be really beneficial, especially to those of us that are on or near the job market, to be well-versed in many areas of our chosen field.
After lunch, I attended talks on helping underprepared students transition into college mathematics and on humanistic mathematics. Then, I found a very interesting session in the conference program: Three MAA teaching award winners were giving invited talks. There didn't appear to be a particular theme to the talks, but they all had interesting titles, so I settled in for the hour-and-a-half session. These talks didn't disappoint. They were full of interesting reflections on our role as teachers, as ambassadors for mathematics, and as (current or future) faculty members. I got the impression that all three of the speakers were pure mathematicians, not math education researchers, and their talks were full of humor and insight. I've never noticed this session before, but I'd recommend it to those attending the Joint Meetings in the future.
A few last-minute reflections on conferences more generally:
1. Go with at least one or two people you know, but be prepared to reach out and meet other people in your area of interest. On the one hand, you don't want to be forced to eat meals alone the first couple of days of the conference, and you'll have more confidence to approach new acquaintances if you have a friend with you. On the other hand, it's important to use conferences to network, share ideas, and develop professional relationships across geographical constraints.
2. Be bold! Don't be afraid to start conversations with people in your field! I can't think of anyone who would be upset that you wanted to discuss their talk (or recent paper, or prior conference presentation, or whatever) with them during the conference. Plus, having been to someone's talk or knowing their published work is a great way to break the ice when you introduce yourself to them. If you have a friend, advisor, or mentor with more experience in your area, see if they can introduce you to these bigwigs.
3. Have fun. Yes, it's important to attend talks in your area to see the latest research, but it's also important to find a session or two that you just find independently interesting. It's beneficial to us as humans to recharge our social and intellectual batteries every now and again.
4. Plan ahead. Conferences are much more affordable if you have travel support, a roommate, and firm plans upon arrival. For some conferences, you must apply to give talks many months in advance of the actual conference. Start now to find dates of conferences in your area and begin making plans to attend! You can visit the graduate student webpage for more information on conference funding options.
Good luck!
I emerged from my slumber to find that my arch-enemies, allergies, had stealthly attacked me during the night. I strolled down to the local CVS to get some medicine, which had some degree of success. This was the day of my talk and I could have taken this as a bad omen, but I just as well could have considered the curse the voodoo priest placed on me the night before as a bad omen. My talk was scheduled for 1:45pm and so I computed the probability of my cooking up of enough good mojo and was relieved.
The first talk I attended this day was that of Dr. Brady. He spoke about research he had done with Sang Rae and Dr. Guralnik. I did a quick inventory after the talk and then returned to my hotel to rearm with tissues. My negotiations with the box of tissues went extremely well, concluding with its unconditional surrender. I met up with Kashyap and Sean Crowell and we went on a souvenir hunt, once again seeing our favorite bawdy T-shirts.
My number theory session started at 1:00 and I saw some familiar faces from other conferences I had attended. When my turn came, I was somewhat surprised that I had managed to complete my talk in exactly the time allotted, 10 minutes. It takes some practice to give talks this short and you'll hear lots of different opinions on what a "good" 10 minute talk is. I had given similar talks each month for the past few months, each lasting 5-10 minutes less than the previous. Some people who also worked in Siegel modular forms and GSp(4) approached me at the end of my talk and introduced themselves.
I had to leave the session after about an hour for a future employment prospect that seems to be approaching a tangible possibility. After a change of wardrobe, I went back to the number theory session and the undergraduate poster session. I talked with a few undergraduates about their projects and offered some advice about research and going to graduate school.
With the day of mathematics talks over, Kashyap, Ravi, Minsu, and I then went to eat at Galatoire's. I saw Turtle Soup on the menu, which for some reason I need to have before I leave New Orleans. I didn't order it this night, but I made plans with Minsu to return for lunch the next day and dine on this foreboding dish.
(A quick reminder: These posts represent the views of Sarah and Jeff, respectively, and do not reflect the views or opinions of the MGSA, the Department of Mathematics, or the University of Oklahoma.)
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.