dubious.biz(ness)

My bedder (cleaner) made my bed. They aren’t supposed to do that. Not that I mind.

I’d like to write some quirky observations about life here, unfortunately I need to catch everyone up with what’s going on. We are entering “Week 4″ out of 8, so I’m technically nearly half way. The strain and pressure of Cambridge is enormous. Essentially, everything here is fast. It forces you to consolidate, to pick and choose what you work on, what you choose to understand deeply, and the things that you allow to skip past until the break. This isn’t to say that you can just get by paying attention to only half of the information, because all of it will be on the exams at the end of the year. It does mean that you must force yourself to schedule, prioritize, and triage.

Those are all incredibly important skills in life, and I can’t imagine the pressure on the typical undergraduate. I can, however, gauge the pressure on myself, and while it starts out quite painful, it is possible to get used to it. Most people say that the first year is the worst in terms of adaptation, the second is the worse in terms of course load. I could buy that. I have been spending about 24hrs/week doing homework, 12hrs/week doing lectures, 4hrs/week doing supervision, 4hrs/week doing practicals, and quite a few other hours doing extracurriculars. It adds up to a reasonable amount, but total concentration is required at all times.

Anyway this is about redemption, right? So in the first week I was decimated by my second Director of Studies (the Russian). Fortunately, I rebounded and two weeks later he wanted to meet with me. I was so afraid of the little bugger that I did math review before I left for the meeting. So he brings me in, apologizes for asking me to come down (the English way), sits me down, and pulls out a piece of paper. He looks at it for a moment and says, well, I have been reviewing your work, and I have talked to your supervisors and all my worries have gone away. It is blue skies. They actually think you are quite smart.

It went on like this for a bit. Rankings and implied quality seems to be very important to him but it’s so subtle that not even his words convey it. At any rate, the math supervisor is his PhD student, so he is invests ultimate and total faith in him. The physics supervisor is new and not his student but he’s from Imperial (which is almost as good as Cambridge) and he doesn’t go to St. Catz therefore he’s less trustworthy in his estimation of me.

So I’m back in the good books. Of course, my first Director of Studies hasn’t said anything about how I’m doing, but I can pretty much say I’m doing well. One of the most frustrating aspects of Cambridge’s system is that there is no assessment until the end of the year except these nebulous and unofficial supervision assignments. From that you sort of have to infer whether you are on the right track because you don’t get anything tangible (except for lab work, which is graded in a totally different way) until you start reviewing for exams in the 3rd term.

I can however say that through a lot of time with the books and papers I have a good grasp of everything that’s going on in each of my classes. I don’t know how well I’m doing relatively but I think that may be a good thing because I’m basically busting my ass to make Cambridge’s standard, not my peers’ (some of whom seem to take the entire year lightly because nothing counts in the assessments).

At any rate, it’s back to books for me.

Firstly, this is old. I’m sorry I haven’t been updating, those of you who have caught me online/called me know what’s up, but I have been doing a lot and it’s been hard to find time for the blog. So today I happen to have an hour and I should be able to roll out a few entries.

One of the first things they tell you at the orientations which were so popular is that cambridge has a great number of societies, pretty much one for every strange interest you might have. There are (as with everything) local college societies and larger university societies. I started out thinking I would join a few. I’ve ended up on quite a lot. Obviously boating, although I don’t know if that’s going to make the cut, as I really don’t like the idea of waking up at early o’clock and going to the boathouse which is about 20 minutes cycling. (Turns out I row on sunday afternoon because there’s a boat every morning, which is pretty much totally awesome).

Then I ended up, strangely, on the June Event Committee. I haven’t been to a June Event but from the experienced, it is basically this: starting at 6 or 7, you eat at a formal hall. You retire and festivities begin. By festivities I mean bands, DJs, dancing, music, bumper cars, laser tag, bronco busting, casino… this is a serious party. It’s called a June Event because it is in June, after exams. The other sort is called a May Ball and is generally more formal and comes in May before the exams. Every college has one, ours is fairly small by comparison to the rich colleges like Trinity and Kings (who have a fireworks show) but ours is far more of a party.

So I ended up signing up for it. Basically they have these signup sheets and you feel sort of bad to say no because they basically beg you, so you sign up. Turns out a lot of people just sign up and then avoid meetings, emails, etc. Unfortunately I know the President of the June Event fairly well, so I ended up going to the meeting.

As for my position, it turns out I have two: website and cocktails. And later, I became VP, so I am the Dick Cheney of the June Event. Don’t mess with me. The actual theme turned out to make cocktails a rather pivotal role, but the theme is and will remain secret until it is unveiled. So I have a good excuse to mix drinks and taste them. As if I needed one. The Goat of Bees and Spooky will be called on in the christmas holiday to inebriate themselves for my benefit.

At any rate, I get in free to the partay. And I partay I shall.

Rowing, or as we know it, Crew, or as it as also known here, Boating, is very big. Of course, it’s something you associate with Ivy League universities in the US, and since they started out as basically copies of Oxford/Cambridge, it’s not surprising that it’s the biggest collegiate sport here.

Interestingly, Cambridge is only about 20,000 students, but because it is neatly divided into 31 colleges, most of the boating competition is actually between colleges. There is also a university team, and the university team competes in a famous boat race on the Thames with Oxford (which last year Oxford won). Further, within each college there are several levels of competition, First Div, Second Div, etc. There’s also one for Novices. What I am trying to say in a roundabout way is that one must almost avoid boating to not get involved. Of course I came with the idea in my head that I would.

A lot of people, students and even my DoS have warned me against boating. They said that it is a leech on the time you have to study. It seems to particularly affect PhD students at Wolfson because they can easily spend most of their time boating and not doing their thesis work. The word on the boaties is that “once they get their hands on you, if you’re any good, they’ll push you up to first division and then you’ll be on the water at 6:30am every day.” Of course, I knew that no one could get me up at 6:30am every day, and if they did good work.

So I went boating. Screw the common wisdom, I say. I don’t plan on being homicidal about it, and it’s clear to me that if I can’t swing it I will pull out and screw the team over. If I can hack it, awesome and I will just be that much more efficent. This is how my mind works unfortunately.

Your first session is on a ergo, or rowing machine, then you get out on a tub which is a two-person boat with an experienced cox who gives you instruction on how to row. I ended up in a boat with a friend of mine, Blaise, and we found the boat is much easier to row in circles than in straight lines. Actually the work is not difficult, the form is far more important than I imagined because if not everyone takes their oar out of the water at the same time, then no one can, because the boat is so narrow that it is basically using the oars as catamarans. I was stroke (front) and this technically means that everyone should be following my lead and the cox should be telling me what to do. Of course, in a two person boat on your first time out, it’s more of a team effort with my other teammate out of sight. We did, I would say, “ok” with most of our time being spent getting on the correct side of the river (which is, interestingly, “american” in that you stay right rather than left, of course it’s the cox’s job to make sure we’re on the right side, and it’s out job to make sure we spin in circles).

At every point of added committment so far, the boaties say something like this: Well why don’t you go out in a boat for 30 minutes and if you don’t like it you can just quit right then and there. First the boat is a tub. Then the boat is an eight. First the day is sunday afternoon, then the day is wednesday morning, then it’s twice a week, then every other day, then every day… etc. You get the drift. It’s a well practiced line and you realize that they have, in essence, refined the art of getting dopey freshman to commit themselves to rowing for hundreds of years, perhaps longer than any other organization in the college. And the demands of the rowing team are great, because you must have at least two boats to be competitive, and preferably three, which is 27 people (24 rowers and 3 coxen), which is larger than perhaps any sport besides American football (rugby players generally don’t have separate offense and defense teams). This doesn’t count the women’s versus men’s or the novices or lightweights of which I will most certainly be both.

So I am going to go back out in an eight on Sunday afternoon, and I’m sure after that it will just be one or two sessions on the river and then a few training sessions in the gym per week, and so it goes.

Well I seem to only post when I feel behind, and I don’t really cover the funny bits of college life that would otherwise be interesting. First thank you all for your kind encouragement. I am yet to see how “bad” things are or aren’t. It was certainly a surprise to be lept upon by my Director of Studies, but actually the classes are not nearly as bad.

I will say this, you have got to be on the ball 24/7. This is a big change from UK/EKU where you could expect the same material to be covered at least twice, if not three times. Here, it’s said, and that’s it. If you don’t catch it, you can go to the library and read, read your notes again, or ask your supervisor. There is a complex support system of nets to fall back on, but the velocity of learning here is at a breakneck speed.

Today, for example, in the course of an hour we covered every single basic operation you can do on vectors, along with the algebraic rules that apply and don’t to each operation. This would be akin to learning addition, multiplication, subtraction, and division in one hour, and in UK/EKU at least two classes would be given to each.

Of course, most of this is actually review for the students here (and it is review for me as well), but at any rate it was fast even for my tastes. Not only that, but not a single example is ever done in my classes. It is pure information with no application and this is an applied maths course, I would hate to imagine the real maths courses.

But once you are comfortable with the pace, it seems like there is exactly enough time alotted to you to keep up, assuming you’re smart. There is no way you could do anything time consuming like a job and keep up the pace though. And there are always the vacations to decompress.

I have yet to experience a real Cambridge week as part of this week (Cambridge weeks start on Thursdays) was introductory, and the supervisions are not as hard as they will be in later weeks. But, it will hopefully be doable. I have a class at 9:00am every day except Sunday (Cambridge considers Saturday a class day, and classes are either MWF or THS). I decided therefore that I might as well do rowing. More on that later. I also will might end up helping the bike repair society as well as helping the June Ent (the “prom” of Wolfson) committee. I will also logically drop one of those as it is clear to me that three things, especially if one is rowing, will not be possible.

I have met most of my supervisors, and they’re all basically my age or younger, and they’re doing PhDs, so they’re very similar to the folks at Wolfson who are mostly grad students. In contrast to the DoSes I’ve had they’re amiable, at least, and they seem to be stumped or at least see difficulty in the same problems I do.

It looks like most of my time will be spent on Physics and Math, CompSci classes are going to be easy and almost all review. The trick will, of course, be to pay attention so I don’t miss the parts that aren’t.

To sum it up I am beginning to take it all in and surmise the situation is possible, but it won’t be without a lot of hard work, and this isn’t a unique situation that I’m in, nearly everyone at Cambridge is brilliant and we all have to work our asses off to stay on top of things.

Ok, now that I’ve gotten that down, I act like it’s today, which it is. This will not be pretty.

I was supposed to meet with my DoS on Monday at 2:30 PM. I scheduled this with him at 12:30 PM. At some point between 12:30 and 2:00 he forgot and went to a seminar instead. I went to the Computer Lab, waited for him for about 25 minutes, then left. We had to reschedule for 10. When I got there at 10 he had just arrived, which doesn’t really bother or surprise me since he’s a programmer.

He seemed to be a bit unprepared. I had expected that as well, but perhaps not to the degree that it seems he was unprepared. We went through some things, he read some emails that were addressed generally to all CompSci DoSes for what seemed to be the first time with me reading over his shoulder. We got sorted that I should do these lectures, I need to arrange my supervisions, and I needed to register for practicals. All seems well.

He asks if I’ve met with the NatSci DoS. I say no, I haven’t I didn’t know I would have to. He frowned and said that my tutor should have arranged it. NatSci is short for natural sciences, and it is about 50% of the first year of computer science is actually natural science (because I applied for “50% CompSci”), and those can be any one of Physics, Chemistry, Biology, and a few others. I chose Physics. My CompSci DoS sent an email to my Tutor asking him to get me in touch with my NatSci DoS.

By the time I get back both my tutor and my NatSci DoS have emailed me back asking that I arrange a time to meet. The NatSci DoS arranges 2PM with me, at St. Catharine’s College, which as I find out later, is the number one college in the academic league table. That’s sort of being like the elite of the elite at Cambridge.

When I arrive, I am met by one of the most memorable characters I have met thus far. He seems to be Russian or Eastern European, instantly introduces himself as Wolfson’s NatSci DoS and St Catz’s CompSci DoS, and a theoretical physicist. I wished that he was my DoS, that is, up until he grabbed two pieces of paper and asked me to write on them. Unfortunately, I was not prepared for math. I have not prepared for math, and that was a major mistake of mine. It took me several minutes to clear my mind as he sat next to me Cambridge interview style and watched. I spoke out loud and I realized that I was making some huge mistakes and had to start over several times. He grew tired of the exercise and stopped. I realized I may have gotten in over my head.

He looked at me with the sort of seriousness that only a Russian theoretical physicist can muster. It bored through my brain. He said, “Are you prepared to work very hard?” This sort of question cannot be answered except in the affirmative, but I didn’t even get a chance to answer before he continued, “Because if you are, you may do alright in this course.” This was not praise. In my mind I instantly cleared off all the things I had thought of doing. Learning another language. Rowing. Curling. Punting. It was clear that keeping my head above water would require more effort than I expected. He said that I was to take my supervisions alone, and that I would need to put in extra effort, and I would need to revise (review in british speak) the A-level material if I expected to be able to perform.

He then asked if my other DoS had registered me for practicals. I said no, I had a feeling that he hadn’t. He asked if I was quite sure because the due date was two hours ago, and if I wasn’t registered I wouldn’t be in the practicals (aka lab). Not only was I slightly gray academically, I was dealing with someone far less responsible than myself, and I was being berated by the most serious person at the best college in the Cambridge about having the least responsible DoS of CompSci.

After this I left, went home and immediately got out a math text book and starting working through it, cursing myself for every wasted hour watching TV or screwing off on the computer. I went later that night and picked up the two A levels math text books as well as a revision guide. I am in a small pit and with the impending start of lectures I am realizing that I must immediately get out of that pit because they’re going to start digging very deep very fast when courses start.

If I were to translate it into American terms, I will be taking about one semester of physics per 8 week term, which would total about 15 credit-hours. I will be taking one semester of math starting at Calc III per 8 week term, as well as one semester of discrete/compsci math starting at the bottom in my second and third term. That would total 18 credit hours. Finally I will be taking a smattering of computer science courses, totalling about another 12 credit hours. So that would total out to be 45 credit hours in a total of 24 weeks, where as most american universities run about 26 weeks, and all of these assume freshman level knowledge, so it would be like starting as a sophomore. So if I were a suicidal sophomore at MIT taking 22.5 hours per semester, it would be about even. I could be absolutely wrong in terms of the amount of work expected but in terms of time and material covered, that seems to be about on target.

This isn’t to say that I couldn’t do that. I essentially have nothing else to do here except study (and write this blog), so it’s totally reasonable to expect that I can do this, but it should hopefully serve to illustrate (mainly to myself) that if I don’t get the groundwork down I will be in serious trouble. Now if you will excuse me I have a natural science lecture to get to across town.

I have dug myself a hole by not posting anything for a few important days, so I will start and pretend it is yesterday at about 9am, or maybe Sunday night. You will see why in my next post.

The really cool side to Cambridge’s college system is there are probably 20 people looking out for you, and everyone is always offering to help. It turns out my tutor, who is in charge of my pastoral welfare, is also the admissions tutor, so I know him quite well. There is also a senior tutor and a dean. While sounding academic, their role is not really so academic as it is general counsel and welfare. Of course, they can make academic requests on your behalf (if for example you’re sick they can make sure that your department, etc is notified and handles the situation appropriately, particularly if it is exam time). Generally you don’t meet your tutors unless there is a problem except once per term.

I also have a Director of Studies who is in charge of my academic progress. He happens to be a CompSci PhD, a fellow of the Wolfson, and a lecturer at the Computer Laboratory. All these things are good because it means he is well connected and likely to know what is going on both in Wolfson and in CS. I haven’t met with him (pretending this is Sunday night) since the interview.

As for what I’ve been doing, it has been almost entirely college based and getting my room situated. I’ve been going into town, I got a bike and all the accessories I need with that, a blanket, a coffee maker, and an alarm clock. Cambridge as a city to live in is pretty difficult for an american, because there is no obvious place to go to buy essential goods. Or at least not within a reasonable distance. In America if you move, you can buy everything you’ll need from groceries to guns at Walmart, and there’s something to be said for that.

In Cambridge, there are only three places that sell electric coffee makers and I spent the better part of a day looking for one. One of the places is Boots, which is essentially a drug store (and curiously coffee makers) lacked a coffee maker with a timer. The next place, Starbucks, kept its tradition of high prices up by selling a 80 pound coffee maker. That’s about US$140. I think not. Finally, Marks and Spencer which is basically a department store, carried only one coffee maker, but fortunately it had every single feature I need.

I had to read through the manual to figure out how to work the damn thing, and the advice (as it seems with all electrical appliances in the UK) is to unplug it after using it. Why one would buy a coffee maker with a clock and unplug it is beyond me.

Moreover, I should note that the shopping district in cambridge is essentially the downtowniest part of downtown, it is essentially a mostly pedestrianized group of streets where at some point stores start and at another equally illogical point they stop. And like all Cambridge streets they arc left or right for no good reason, meaning that streets that start out parallel end up going away from each other and no intersections line up to orient yourself. It’s so quaint.

The large majority of students here are graduates and their lifestyle is vastly different from mine. Also so is their stay. Most people will be here for one or two years, while I will be here for three. That has a downside meaning I will have to find new people every year. It has a good side meaning that when I leave I will be among the best known to the porters.

Fortunately because almost everyone here is foreign and lacking any real support system, they are all very friendly and it’s easy to make friends quickly. Of course, many of the Indian students stick with the Indians, and many of the Chinese stick with the Chinese, but the rest tend to mingle openly with each other.

The general understanding is that your college gets you until Monday and then your department gets you. I haven’t really heard anything about the department yet or really met anyone else doing the same thing I am, I’m the only one in my subject doing undergraduate at Wolfson, so I’m a bit isolated. The official class start is Thursday, it would appear, and lectures start then. Until then it is basically getting my digs on and socializing.

Because it seems skype is overly complicated to explain, I figured I would try to do so once and for all so people understand how to get hold of me. Obviously if you want to email me, there is that, but if you’d like to call here are the options:

• You call me on the phone. Dial: (859)GIVE-LIP and it will call Skype, which is a program running on my computer that lets people call each other. If you use this number there is no per minute charge.
• I call you on the phone. If I call your phone, it does cost me about 2-4 cents per minute. So, it’s preferable that you call me rather than vice-versa.
• Either of us calls the other on the computer. If you buy a headset and install Skype on your computer, it is free for either of us to call the other. You can download Skype at http://www.skype.com/. My username on Skype is killermonkeys, and you just add me as a “buddy” similar to instant messenger programs.

I also have a mobile phone number, but it is international calling to call me on that, and if you’d like my mobile number, let me know. And email. Or comments to the blog. Or you can mail me a letter. Or, you could come visit… the sky is the limit, really.

Basically the first few days at Cambridge for undergraduates are for “orientation” which is a silly way of saying that they are for the same sorts of things that geeky kids like myself have been pouring over online for the past year. A few points of difference between this university and others: Tutors and supervisions: The tutor in Cambridge is more like a mentor or someone who is there to look out for your general welfare. They also find out how you are doing academically and compile that information together and if necessary they will assist you in getting back up to speed. But for the most part they are there to make sure you’re doing ok.

From supervisors, they get reports on how you are doing in your supervisions. Supervisions are one of the key ways that Cambridge (and Oxford although the call them Tutorials there) are different from nearly every other university. Supervisions are two to six person sessions lasting one hour each week that for me will be mostly reviews and in depth mathematical sessions. For people with arts and humanities sorts of courses, it is much more philosophical, and you can spend the whole time thinking and talking.

My supervisions will also be on the smaller side. This is because Wolfson is responsible for my supervisions and I am the only undergraduate as far as I know who is doing Computer Science. At other colleges it is much easier to hide behind the other students but even if I am paired with another college (as it was last year) I will still be in a two student / one supervisor lecture, if not it will only be me. Perhaps I can pretend I don’t understand english…

As for orientation, it is exceedingly easy to meet people. There are Cambridgers, MITers, hundreds of people from other countries and I haven’t even begun meeting people English people yet (they start arriving Saturday and Sunday). I have met people from nearly every continent in the world except the Antartic, and I am quite sure I could bike down to the Scott Polar Research Institute which is one of the foremost in the world if I wanted to fill the gap. Cambridge is truly a meeting of the minds, and in particular Wolfson is very cosmopolitan.

Orientation, unfortunately, is not that orienting for me, as I have spent the past several months reading all that I can about Cambridge. It provides a quiet time to talk and get situated, but it is nice to also hear many of the things I have “heard” about Cambridge from a reliable source.