Halftime

I was thinking about the theory of Markov chains when the house was suddenly filled with a roaring “Goaal!” coming from the other room.

This is what happens when your housemates finish their exams a week earlier and the FIFA World Cup starts in the meantime. Where was I again? Right, given an irreducible Markov chain we know that.. “Goaal!”.

At last, the first half ended and the players took a break. It was astonishing to realize that I am as well almost halfway through my undergraduate course at Warwick. It would almost seem the time flies here.

In the second year, there were many great modules, but no doubt the best one was the Essay. Essay? Mathematician? Why?! That is what I thought at first, when I found out we are supposed to choose a mathematical topic and write an essay ten pages long. The thing is, in mathematics brevity is king and then ten pages is not entirely short. However, it turned out that as usual the most difficult part was to choose the topic.

In my case it was projective geometry, which studies projective transformations - in other words, what kind of shadow can we make. Unlike the classical one, projective geometry works with a notion of a point at infinity - hence, for example in a projective plane even parallel lines intersect.

Surprisingly, the Essay was quite a useful module in the end, as we got practice with a typesetting programme LaTeX as well as a hands on experience with long-run planning and time management. In fact, we had a deadline for the Essay and five additional exams in a single week just after Easter holidays, therefore a good plan was absolutely necessary.

In term three, usually there are no lectures. This means you have a lot of time to study for the final exams. The best thing is, no matter if you are an early bird or a night owl, you can organize your day the way it suits you. While it takes some time to find the perfect daily routine, when you do find it, the productivity levels are extreme.

A thorough preparation is crucial for the summer exams - the more, a certain overall mark is required in order to continue on the four-year course, and hence the results matter more than ever. Fortunately, I have already finished all my exams and all I have to do is arrange a summer storage and wait for the outcome.

Last but not least, I would like to mention that mathematician ranked as one of the best jobs according to CareerCast 2014. I was very pleased to hear this, as - despite all the difficulty - it would seem I did not make such a bad choice, after all.

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