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International Congress

Posted: Tue Jun 01, 2010 11:28 pm
by satyad18
Hello all,
I'll be attending the International Congress of Mathematicians which is in August. Can anyone suggest on how should I make the most out of it (by networking, talking to the profs & all).? And how will it affect my grad school application as a whole(lor & sop).? I'm just too excited about it, as I'll get a chance to interact with some of the best people. What do you guys think.?

Re: International Congress

Posted: Wed Jun 02, 2010 12:19 pm
by blackcat007
satyad18 wrote:Hello all,
I'll be attending the International Congress of Mathematicians which is in August. Can anyone suggest on how should I make the most out of it (by networking, talking to the profs & all).? And how will it affect my grad school application as a whole(lor & sop).? I'm just too excited about it, as I'll get a chance to interact with some of the best people. What do you guys think.?
Well you could write in your SOP how this experience with the famous mathematicians beefed up your already existing interest in Math, and how it would help to progress in your graduate studies. Recommendation is not something that you ask from a person with whom you spent few hours over a period of few days, no matter how much famous and eminent personality s/he is. your recommender should be able to gauge your research skills and should be able to point out your +ve traits that will prove valuable for research, which is (I think) impossible in sch a short period. Also it might give a very negative impression on you if you ask for recommendation from someone with whom you just met in a conference.
Learn from the experience and get to know about the possible fields of research in math and also the scope for research in them.

Re: International Congress

Posted: Thu Jun 03, 2010 2:16 pm
by HappyQuark
I would recommend listening to as many of the speakers as you possibly can and see if you can find some professors/researchers that you would be interested in doing research with and/or finding topics that interest you. When it comes time to apply to schools you can try contacting some of the professors you saw at the conference and tell them that their talk got you interested in their field. From what I've read (I can't for the life of me recall where it was) professors loathe getting emails saying things like,
- "Do you think I could get into your institution"
- "If I bothered to apply, would you let me in your research group?"
- "What is it you do again?"

But they generally are favorable towards emails saying things like,
- "I did research at my undergraduate university on Hyper-Spherical groups in Aleph Symmetrical Hilbert Spaces and, based on what a brilliant guy you are, I had a wicked interesting question to ask you?"
- "I saw your presentation on Homologic second order quandles in odd abelian groups and found it fascinating. Based on all this other information which I will provide below which thoroughly demonstrates that I have taken an active interest in the area and not just pulled some crazy sounding words off of the ArXiV, where do you think the field is headed next?"

Re: International Congress

Posted: Fri Jun 04, 2010 12:23 pm
by satyad18
@ blackcat: Thanks. But I know of the negative impression it would send. And I didn't mean that.

@HappyQuark: Thanks. I got what you exactly mean.
HappyQuark wrote:"I did research at my undergraduate university on Hyper-Spherical groups in Aleph Symmetrical Hilbert Spaces and, based on what a brilliant guy you are, I had a wicked interesting question to ask you?"
Well, I haven't done anything at that level. What am I supposed to do then.?

Re: International Congress

Posted: Fri Jun 04, 2010 2:47 pm
by HappyQuark
satyad18 wrote:@ blackcat: Thanks. But I know of the negative impression it would send. And I didn't mean that.

@HappyQuark: Thanks. I got what you exactly mean.
HappyQuark wrote:"I did research at my undergraduate university on Hyper-Spherical groups in Aleph Symmetrical Hilbert Spaces and, based on what a brilliant guy you are, I had a wicked interesting question to ask you?"
Well, I haven't done anything at that level. What am I supposed to do then.?
I was being sarcastic with the "Hyper-Spherical groups in Aleph Symmetrical Hilbert Spaces". As far as I know, there is no such thing. I effectively took a grouping of the craziest math terms I could recall from my Abstract Algebra course and constructed an imaginary field of mathematics. I've been to a couple of mathematics conferences and I've generally found that I know at least enough to understand what general topic they are discussing and which fields relate to their research. What I am suggesting is that you listen to as many talks as you can and if you find something that interests you, take note of who gave the talk and then contact that person around admissions time and ask them questions with the intention of making it clear that you are directly interested in their research.

On a slightly related note, there is a fun little website/game I found called the snarXiV that uses a bunch of algorithms to construct realistic sounding but fake arXiv entries. The game I referred to is arXiv vs snarXiv which tests your ability to pick out the real article from the fake one.

The site: http://www.snarxiv.org
The game: http://www.snarxiv.org/vs-arxiv/

Re: International Congress

Posted: Fri Jun 04, 2010 11:05 pm
by satyad18
HappyQuark wrote: I was being sarcastic with the "Hyper-Spherical groups in Aleph Symmetrical Hilbert Spaces". As far as I know, there is no such thing. I effectively took a grouping of the craziest math terms I could recall from my Abstract Algebra course and constructed an imaginary field of mathematics. I've been to a couple of mathematics conferences and I've generally found that I know at least enough to understand what general topic they are discussing and which fields relate to their research. What I am suggesting is that you listen to as many talks as you can and if you find something that interests you, take note of who gave the talk and then contact that person around admissions time and ask them questions with the intention of making it clear that you are directly interested in their research.
Thanks. :)
HappyQuark wrote:On a slightly related note, there is a fun little website/game I found called the snarXiV that uses a bunch of algorithms to construct realistic sounding but fake arXiv entries. The game I referred to is arXiv vs snarXiv which tests your ability to pick out the real article from the fake one.

The site: http://www.snarxiv.org
The game: http://www.snarxiv.org/vs-arxiv/
Thats a nice one. :D

Re: International Congress

Posted: Fri Jun 04, 2010 11:16 pm
by satyad18
HappyQuark wrote:What I am suggesting is that you listen to as many talks as you can and if you find something that interests you, take note of who gave the talk and then contact that person around admissions time and ask them questions with the intention of making it clear that you are directly interested in their research.
So should I then try for some top-notch universities and will it make my SOP/profile stronger.? At present I'm thinking of applying to average ranked universities.

Re: International Congress

Posted: Sat Jun 05, 2010 3:59 pm
by HappyQuark
satyad18 wrote:
HappyQuark wrote:What I am suggesting is that you listen to as many talks as you can and if you find something that interests you, take note of who gave the talk and then contact that person around admissions time and ask them questions with the intention of making it clear that you are directly interested in their research.
So should I then try for some top-notch universities and will it make my SOP/profile stronger.? At present I'm thinking of applying to average ranked universities.
The only thing this will due is convey to potential grad schools/departments/researchers that you might be a more dedicated student than some others. Ultimately, your admissions will still be based primarily on PGRE, Letters of Rec, GPA and Research and you should probably select schools based on that.

Re: International Congress

Posted: Sat Jun 05, 2010 11:01 pm
by satyad18
HappyQuark wrote:
satyad18 wrote:
HappyQuark wrote:What I am suggesting is that you listen to as many talks as you can and if you find something that interests you, take note of who gave the talk and then contact that person around admissions time and ask them questions with the intention of making it clear that you are directly interested in their research.
So should I then try for some top-notch universities and will it make my SOP/profile stronger.? At present I'm thinking of applying to average ranked universities.
The only thing this will due is convey to potential grad schools/departments/researchers that you might be a more dedicated student than some others. Ultimately, your admissions will still be based primarily on PGRE, Letters of Rec, GPA and Research and you should probably select schools based on that.
Okay. Thanks..