Fun With Calculus

I recently had my first calculus quiz of the semester and it reminded me that even as the years go by, some things stay the same. The last time I took calculus was in high school, so I was a bit worried about this semester's class. After the first few lectures, however, methods of integration and derivation were emerging from the various corners of my brain they had been hiding in. I also remembered to forget to add "+ c" to all my integrations on the quiz.

Fun With Tutorials

The tutorial system at Oxford involves students meeting one on one with professors and discussing a particular area of knowledge. In the biology program, among others, the student will write an essay in advance of the tutorial, and in the meeting itself, the professor will give feedback and bring up areas or angles the student might not have considered.

Different professors, of course, have different styles. Some have done fieldwork all around the world and use lots of examples from their personal experience. Others like to take the conversation to areas not covered in the reading (I see you've written about global warming; what's your favorite type of sustainable energy and why?). I've had tea to drink during exactly two tutorials, which was nice.

It's not a bad system.

Notes and Notepaper

At the moment, I consider any reading that I don't have to take notes on reading for pleasure. Just like having to fill out a worksheet while watching a movie in class, taking notes while reading hugely changes the tone of the task.

What I didn't realize is that the sort of notepaper I use changes the tone as well. For the past few months I had been writing on unlined paper and I just ran out and made the switch to a lined notebook last week. The lined paper has been great; I feel like my notes are more regular and organized now, and it also helps to have a notebook to flip through instead of stacks of paper covering my desk.

Funnily enough, the topic I'm taking notes on is the importance of accounting for relevant parameters when optimizing a system. In light of this, I'm trying to think of other factors affecting my studying and how I might reach optimal note quality. Using multiple colors of ink is next on my list of experiments.

Essay Writing Part 3

The tutorial system I'm studying in this year involves more writing in less time than I've done before, so I thought I'd take some time to write down my new process:

1. Read texts while taking notes on A4 sheets of paper, recording authors and page numbers so that I can find stuff again while writing.
2. Pin note papers on bulletin board above computer.
3. Write down outline with the subject of each paragraph.
4. Write the second sentence of the first paragraph, then think of a good first sentence.
5. Follow the outline and write the rest of the paper, taking breaks after the first paragraph and after the 1000 word mark, unless I've entered flow.
6. Add figures if it's a biology essay.
7. Take a long break.
8. Carefully edit the first and last paragraphs and skim the rest.
9. Send the essay to the tutor.
10. Spend at least two hours relaxing before thinking of when the next essay is due.

Steps 1-3 usually happen over two days, then I set aside an afternoon or evening for steps 4-7. Steps 8-10 happen the next day.

Pursuing an Education

Studying at Oxford takes a lot of active involvement, but not necessarily in the way I thought it would. I hadn't previously thought much of the phrase 'pursuing a degree', but after a few weeks, the hunting metaphor seems fitting. Books from reading lists have to be located and gathered, often from multiple libraries. Things like using the online printing system are lightly explained; a lot is left for the student to figure out.

One striking example of this educational pursuit is a lab class I had. A syllabus was posted online with topics to be covered and the dates and times of meetings, but for the location of this class, only one word was given: 'Southwood'. A bit of digging in the syllabus revealed that this referred to Southwood Laboratory, but I couldn't find any mention of the place on the Zoology website or online in general. I guessed that Southwood would be a room in the Zoology building, where most of my lectures and labs take place. The Zoology receptionist, however, couldn't tell me anything and recommended I try the Plant Sciences building. The Plant Sciences receptionist assured me that I should look in the Zoology building. Another Zoology receptionist told me what floor to look on, and finally, with the help of another student, I found the mysterious Southwood-- the entrance was inside another lab with a different name. It was obvious once I knew where it was.

Reading Tired

I can do a lot of things while tired, but reading isn't one of them. I had to read some papers about plant disease today and even just a few minutes of staring at the paragraphs was enough to send me into a tired daze. I decided to scan each paper and summarize it, then sleep for a bit and try again.

I'm much more lucid now and it turns out my sleepy summaries weren't that great. One paper dealt with mechanisms by which plants can use bacterial DNA to combat viruses. The synopsis I had written down is "why politics is a thing". I'm sure it made sense at the time.

The Deep End

I've enjoyed learning about medieval English literature in the past couple years, but when it comes to Old English, I'm still very much in the shallow end of the pool. Some assigned readings this week introduced me to some very serious and detailed criticism focused on The Battle of Maldon.

The Battle of Maldon is a fragment of Old English poetry, seeming to lack beginning and end. It tells a romanticized version of a historical battle near the town of Maldon in 991 AD fought between Vikings and the native Anglo-Saxons. The Anglo-Saxon earl, Byrhtnoth, dies in battle and his loyal followers fight to the death rather than fleeing once their lord is dead.

The Battle of Maldon as we know it is only 325 lines long, but whole books have been written about it. I read one chapter that detailed the layout of 10th century Maldon and had a map that showed dykes and forests and the specific lands that belonged to Byrhtnoth. In another reading, there was a twenty page discussion over whether a location mentioned in medieval sources as 'Assandun' refers to the town of Ashdon in Essex or Ashingdon, also in Essex.

These essays of criticism on The Battle of Maldon frequently quote Old English and Latin, and sometimes German and Greek, not providing translations afterwards as I've gotten used to in other books. I can only assume that the intended audience of this criticism is other experts in the field; they may be the only people who, in addition to knowing Old English and Latin, care enough about The Battle of Maldon to find an essay on the development of Maldon's minting industry in the 990s AD interesting. J.R.R. Tolkien himself composed a fictional verse epilogue for the poem, an interesting example of fanfiction.

Near the end of a book of essays on The Battle of Maldon, one author says, "The poem that cornered the [Anglo-Saxonist] praise market has never made it into the registers of general culture." Indeed, since Beowulf, a greater poem with similar themes, exists, it seems unlikely that The Battle of Maldon will ever reach mainstream fame. The academic work surrounding it is certainly opaque to me.

Tutorials

One great thing about studying at Oxford is the tutorial system; once a week, students meet one-on-one or in small groups with a professor and are assigned work (usually reading and an essay) to do by next week's meeting. It's a very flexible system and varies between departments and colleges. For both of my tutorials, I've been given great advice and been able to choose very specifically what to study. These first few weeks of term have involved Beowulf, J.R.R. Tolkien, medicinal plants, and nest-building behaviors in songbirds.

This seems like a pretty good deal; why isn't the tutorial system more common in Universities? Oxford and Cambridge are the main two institutions that use tutorials, and I believe Williams College is one lonely example in the U.S. It could be that holding tutorials is more expensive and difficult to organize than the lectures and classes typical of most universities. I don't know much about the logistics involved.

It is important to note that people go to college to different valid reasons-- the knowledge and skills gained, the relationships gained, the degree at the end. Tutorials may not be the ideal experience for everyone, but I suppose I've already declared which camp I'm in. In the past few years, I've found that after talking to a cynical student with their eye on the finish line, the best thing to cheer me up is listening to someone who really enjoys their work.

Morning Exam Preparation

Here's what I lay out the night before to prepare for an 8 AM exam:
1. A piece of paper with the date, time, and location of the exam in case I'm not thinking straight when I first wake up
2. The clothes I'm going to wear so I don't need to spend time choosing them tomorrow
3. At least two pens to write with
4. Something quick and healthy to eat in the morning like a pear or a bowl of oats

I'll set two alarms to ring at 7:00 and 7:01 AM. With any luck, 8 AM will find me ready to think and write at peak ability.

Essay Writing Part 2

I've written previously about essay writing, but in that time the essays I was writing were two or three pages long and based on more simple questions. Here's my process for this semester's five or six page essays:

1. Write down ideas while reading texts. This happens days before writing begins. I write on the Dunkin' Donuts receipts that fill my pockets.
2. Get into writing mindset. Today, this involved drinking a cup of cold water, looking at myself in the mirror, and hitting myself in the face.
3. Format word document and think of paper title.
4. Write introductory paragraph
5. Take a short break, possibly writing a blog post about essay writing.
6. Write the rest of the paper
7. Edit the first paragraph to reflect what's actually written in the paper
8. Save and do something else, most likely not working for the rest of the evening.
9. Next morning, look over the paper, edit for grammar, and print.

The Most Obvious Due Date

The week before spring break is a great place for a teacher to end a unit: it's the end of the first half of the semester, for one thing, and students returning from break will be able to start learning something new instead of having to remember specific details about whatever was being learned before break.

I'm happy to say that almost all of my teachers have made this judgement, and while this means that there are a lot of tests and projects to be done in the next few days, I can go on break without worrying about schoolwork.

What happens in the meanwhile is a thrilling game of schedule tetris: what project needs to be done when, and when and for how long do I fit in studying?

Legal Deposit Libraries

Legal deposit libraries have a legal arrangement to receive a free copy of every book published in the country in which the library is located. This practice seems to have begun if France, where a law written in 1537 declared that no book could be distributed without first being deposited in the king's library.

The first English language library to have this arrangement was the Oxford University Library which, in the early 1600s was curated by Sir Thomas Bodley. Bodley established a policy with the Stationer's Company to have a copy in the university library of each book published in the UK. This library was renamed the 'Bodleian Library' in his honor.

The United States currently has the Library of Congress as its one legal deposit library.

Pipette Tip Prices

I wrote a research proposal for the first time this weekend and it was a generally positive experience. One has to plan for every detail. How much will pipette tips cost? We went through pipette tips like nobody's business in Biology 141 Lab, but it turns out they can cost as much as $0.25 a piece. Research seems to get expensive very fast.

Tuesday is the New Wednesday

I'm at the end of a very long day, and while I'm not usually this busy, I describe today's schedule here because it contained something of every class I'm taking this semester.

8:00-8:30AM: Wake up, get ready for school

9:00-9:55AM: Meet with Cell Biology group and professor to prepare presentation on microbiome for class tomorrow

10:05-11:55AM: Work in Herbarium repairing and labeling plant specimens

12:00-12:40PM: Eat lunch while reading the school newspaper

1:00-2:15PM: Introduction to Teaching class. Today's subject is current education policy in the U.S.

2:30-3:45PM: Medical Botany class. Today's subject is plant poisons.

4:00-5:00PM: SIRE seminar. Today's subject is personal statements for graduate school applications

5:00-8:00PM: Computer Aided Design class. Today we continue to learn Autodesk 2D software

8:15-9:15PM: Meet with Cell Biology group to practice presentation

9:15-10:00PM: Eat supper

10:00-11:00PM: Relax in dorm

11:00-11:40PM: Finish reading Stanzaic Morte Arthur for Arthurian Literature class.

It's been a good day.

Mental Fatigue

One thing I've learned during exam weeks is that I generally can't think intensively for more than two hours at a time. The efficiency of my studying goes down if I don't take decent breaks between two-hour blocks, and sometimes I can't even think enough to play video games after especially mental sessions.

It could be my imagination, but this effect is unfortunately noticeable during the two-and-a-half-hour exams that come at the end of each semester. I charge in at the beginning of a test with all the knowledge I've gained and hope that I get through all the questions before fatigue sets in. It's worked so far.

Exam Design

What's the purpose of an academic exam? Generally, exams are meant to evaluate what knowledge and skills a student has gained, and the way an exam is designed determines what skills are tested.

A general example of this is multiple choice vs free response. Multiple choice questions test recognition-- selecting one correct answer from a finite, visible pool of answers. Free response questions, on the other hand, test recollection, determining if a student can identify a correct answer without being prompted.

What would happen if students were allowed to look at their notes during an exam? Understanding and memory would probably be less vital, and note-taking ability would be the major skill tested.

Next, what would happen if the professor made available all possible questions on the exam and their correct answers for students to study before taking a take-home exam? Two things are tested in this case: short-term memory, as looking over the question bank right before taking the exam is a no-brainer, and moral soundness, for cheating on such an exam would be extremely easy to do and get away with.

With the question bank so readily available, it's hard to imagine that anyone in the class would get less than a 95% on this exam, so it's safe to say that knowledge and skills aren't really being evaluated. This isn't something I should be complaining about, but if exams are my roller coasters, this one was a merry-go-round.

The Night Before Exams

It's the night before exams, and everything stands prepared-- enough pens and pencils to equip a small, studious army, and a blue book to write English exam essays in. The morning will bring a relatively healthy breakfast and hand stretches. It's a big week.

Feudal Research Society

This has been my first semester involved in research, and I had a sudden realization the other day: from the undergraduate point of view, research labs function according to the feudal system.

The monarch is probably the dean of academics or something along those lines. Principal investigators (PIs) are like nobles, wielding great authority in a limited area-- their lab. PIs have lesser nobles and knights to manage day-to-day work in the lab; these are postdocs and graduate students. Lastly, there are peasants, undergraduates that often do much of the basic work in the lab.

Now, this may seem like a negative view of research, but the reciprocity of the feudal system shouldn't be forgotten. Just as serfs work for a noble in exchange for a place to live and protection, a PI maintains the loyalty of graduate students and undergraduates by providing resume-building research experience and mentoring. PIs also look out for their subjects when they write letters of recommendation or help them network with other researchers.

There are, of course, differences between the two systems. For one thing, it's possible to progress to the top of the research hierarchy in a few decades; the medieval feudal system provided much less social mobility. That being said, the similarities are clear to see. In a good lab environment, there's no doubt as to who's in charge, but everyone is happily engaged in the work being done.

Notes in an Exam

I had my Chemistry Lab exam today, and we were interestingly allowed to use one 3x5 inch card of notes during the exam. Small writing is the name of the game, of course, but what was most helpful for me about this exercise was going through all we'd learned through the semester and considering what information is worth putting on the 3x5. Preparing the card could have been more useful than having it. Well played, professor.

On another note, if I were in a position of educational authority, I would like to try allowing a 1x1 inch card of notes in an exam just to see what happens.

The Essay Writing Process

I've had a number of two-page essays to do the past several months, and I've developed a certain routine for completing them:

1. Format word document and gather information
2. Spend several minutes pondering first sentence
3. Write introductory paragraph, making sure that the last sentence of the paragraph states the thesis.
4. Take a short break
5. Write the rest of the paper, following the outline laid out in the first paragraph
6. Spend several minutes pondering last sentence
7. Save and go do something else
8. Proofread and print next morning

It's worked out reasonably well so far.