tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-73463255513374818652024-03-14T22:19:13.930+13:00Graduate Rhapsody [closed]Documenting my last year at universityGaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07556494270770913766noreply@blogger.comBlogger368125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7346325551337481865.post-68504180337546704642010-01-19T12:18:00.001+13:002010-01-19T12:34:33.877+13:00Mesmerised as they light the flame<p>This blog is now closed.</p>
<p>In May, when I graduate, I'll probably post something about that. In the event of my doing further study in the future, I'll consider writing about it here. Otherwise, all my posting is now over at <a href="http://responsetotexts.blogspot.com" target="_blank">litblog</a>.</p>
<p>Thanks for reading.</p>Gaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07556494270770913766noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7346325551337481865.post-87497496333369811352009-12-31T10:00:00.004+13:002010-01-19T12:20:31.363+13:00Another turning point, a fork stuck in the road<p>And so I find myself leaving Victoria University of Wellington, probably for ever. I've been there for six years, and in that time a lot of things have changed - not always for the better. When I was a first year at Vic...</p>
<ul>
<li>It was 2004.</li>
<li>Labour was in government.</li>
<li>Stuart McCutcheon was the Vice-Chancellor at Victoria (he's now at Auckland, and Victoria has Pat Walsh instead).</li>
<li>ITS was known as SCS (for student computing services), and when you told them about something broken, it was fixed within a week.</li>
<li>There was no university wireless network. (There was the excellent student-run SWANS, of course, and it's still more reliable than the official network, but with very limited coverage).</li>
<li>The math department was allowed to hand back its 500 or so weekly assignments via open boxes, so students could - gasp! - see each other's marks as they searched for their own assignments. This was changed to written-agreement-only during my second year, and by third year the open boxes were abolished altogether, leaving the long-suffering admin staff to hand back 500 assignments every week.</li>
<li>The School of Economics and Finance had enough staff to teach all its courses, including more than two specialists in each of macroeconomics and econometrics.</li>
<li>There was no myVictoria - access to the various online services was via a link repository called studentVUW, and you had to login separately to each one.</li>
<li>Student email wasn't administered by Microsoft, and your student email address expired after you finished your study.</li>
<li>There was no Faculty of Engineering.</li>
<li>There was a School of Mathematics and Computer Science. Then there was a School of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science. Now there is a School of Mathematics, Statistics and Operations Research, and a separate School of Computer Science.</li>
<li>Gender and women's studies was, I'm pretty sure, not part of the Faculty of Education.</li>
<li>In fact, there was no Faculty of Education - the Wellington Teachers' College was still an independent institution.</li>
<li>I don't think there was a New Zealand School of Music either.</li>
<li>All areas of the library were signposted as silent study areas, and none of them actually were. (Now there are some where talking and eating are allowed, but it's not clear whether this has led to more respect for silence elsewhere.)</li>
<li>The Rec was... kinda scodie. It was refurbished in about my third year.</li>
<li>The library had carrells. They were good for sleeping in. Now the sides have been removed to make them into ordinary desks.</li>
<li>Relations between VUWSA and the university were very bad, owing to the university's apparent seizure of several student-owned buildings in payment of VUWSA debts. (The buildings seem to be further from student control than ever now, but relations have thawed somewhat.)</li>
<li>The Union, the administrative body for the seized property (made of a bunch of university employees and one member of VUWSA), was still called the Student Union.</li>
<li>Galleria sold Wholly Bagels bagels, and had a medium takeaway coffee size.</li>
<li>O-week events were well attended. (Is there even still such thing as O Week?)</li>
<li>VUWSA tended to have the money to fund them, rather than being constantly on the verge of bankruptcy.</li>
<li>The Pipitea campus was still partly under construction.</li>
<li>The Quad pizza place didn't sell curry, nor roast veges.</li>
<li><i>Salient</i> contained a rather good comic called <i>Man</i>. I think 2004 may also have been the year of the genius <i>Being Blind</i>.</li>
<li>The cafe next to the Overbridge was called the Ilott. It had an awesome mural on the ceiling, with aliens and planets and spaceships, and it sold filter coffee for $1.10, and fruit-flavoured hot chocolate, and used china ornaments as table markers. I don't know what it's called now, and nor do I care, because it has none of those things any more.</li>
<li>There was no Unistop.</li>
<li>There was a campus pharmacy.</li>
<li>There were no Snapper cards. (I still don't know what VUWSA have done about the free bus ticket scheme, with the introduction of Snapper meaning they can no longer give out ten trip tickets.)</li>
<li>The library's collection of books was somewhat bigger than it is now, the controversial Collection Appraisal Project having reduced the collection by 10% in, I think, 2006.</li>
<li>There was no Westpac ATM on campus.</li>
<li>The EdCom computer store on Cotton Street was smaller, darker and less funky-looking.</li>
<li>There was only one table in Cotton Street, in front of what was known as "the good sofa". Now there are many tables, and lots of chairs too.</li>
<li>Cotton Street had rather icky greyish carpet with greenish stripes, instead of the current green carpet/grey vinyl combo.</li>
<li>Cotton Street was full of posters showcasing the work of Science grad students. These stuck out at right angles to the eastern wall and reduced the visual width of the Street.</li>
<li>There was no direct wheelchair access to Cotton from the eastern parking lot.</li>
<li>There was direct access from Cotton to Laby, with no other building in between.</li>
<li>There was furious controversy over the newly-completed entrance to the Easterfield building, which was hugely expensive but inaccessible after the doors were locked at 6pm each evening. Critics protested that this voided its stated purpose of making it safer for students to leave campus late at night.</li>
<li>There was no Te Puni Village.</li>
<li>The Mount Street Bar was called Eastside, The Mount Street Cafe was called Vicky's, and neither of them sucked anywhere near as hard as their modern counterparts do.</li>
</ul>Gaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07556494270770913766noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7346325551337481865.post-76462433534014968062009-12-06T22:57:00.000+13:002010-01-19T12:20:00.089+13:00I'm a-singin' you the song, but I can't sing enough<p>Until now I've kept my lecturers' full names out of this blog, and during Honours, where the lecturer pool is so small, I've even suppressed their first names. Today I break that rule for the first and only time. Today I honour the special lecturers who really made a difference to me during my six years at university.</p>
<p>These people are from many different disciplines; I encountered each of them at very different stages of my studies; they all taught me completely different things about my disciplines, about study and about life. With some of them I never spoke a word one-on-one; others had to suffer me visiting them every other day. Each of them, during my short time in their classes, changed my life in a definite and often terrifying way. I will always remember our encounters fondly.</p>
<p>To Geoff Whittle, Colin Bailey, Philip Rhodes-Robinson and Chris Atkin; to Peter November, Mike Hill and Chamsy el-Ojeili; to Geoff Bertram, Viv Hall, Vladimir Petkov and Jack Robles; to John McDermott, John Randal and Pian Chen; and to Don Trow: thanks!</p>Gaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07556494270770913766noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7346325551337481865.post-32237723555746651442009-12-02T23:09:00.000+13:002010-01-19T12:21:14.610+13:00There are two paths you can go by<p>Got my First. Phew.</p>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN2T76ytBvy7oFXBtUQzEjgRiHSlm4sATFrIatcm92boQSatQEBZJi7Cu-nawzttjz9lnH0SdVTELLQHDAqY_NX3HWsdqpfxSE1Xc-RXgkamnpFdQYGLr5pZh6Ko7u9_dZ2fMitDdoYzg/s1600-h/1st+class.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN2T76ytBvy7oFXBtUQzEjgRiHSlm4sATFrIatcm92boQSatQEBZJi7Cu-nawzttjz9lnH0SdVTELLQHDAqY_NX3HWsdqpfxSE1Xc-RXgkamnpFdQYGLr5pZh6Ko7u9_dZ2fMitDdoYzg/s320/1st+class.png" /></a><br /></div>
<p>In principle, I could now complete a Masters in one year at Vic, enter directly into a PhD program at any New Zealand university, or start grad school from scratch in the USA (after passing the GRE, of course). Note that I'm not saying any of these is a good idea. They're just what the rules would allow me to do.</p>
<p>The alternative is to take up a permanent position at a well-respected New Zealand economic institution, continue my education informally, be productive, get paid, and take some control of my life.</p>Gaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07556494270770913766noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7346325551337481865.post-42912777293763443262009-11-26T16:08:00.000+13:002010-01-19T12:21:14.613+13:00Just like a mattress balances on a bottle of wine<p>Here are my grades for the year. To work out which ones are from this half, ignore all the A+ grades except that belonging to ECON 405. The ones you're not ignoring are my second trimester grades.</p>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjq8R7zIgG9CTBWZ-WdZ7Yh_lt22SlLImIbvTjRQgkTmCX9UUVOVxdQQ3gVNtgYONdxfsieM4VrLUIN141newCvXUe7kOXuFU_WQPxrVCTtlLj21aj2oA0B7EO2pnJco_umg78XgxS1nzo/s1600/final+grades.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjq8R7zIgG9CTBWZ-WdZ7Yh_lt22SlLImIbvTjRQgkTmCX9UUVOVxdQQ3gVNtgYONdxfsieM4VrLUIN141newCvXUe7kOXuFU_WQPxrVCTtlLj21aj2oA0B7EO2pnJco_umg78XgxS1nzo/s320/final+grades.png" /></a><br /></div>
<p>I hereby award myself the Inconsistency Prize for the oddest-looking grade spread ever.</p>
<p>Specific comments:</p>
<ul>
<li>The Modelling grade is a slight disappointment. After getting an A+ in the 25% essay and having a good exam, I thought I'd get an A+ in the course too. Oh well.</li>
<li>The Metrics grade is a small miracle. My midterm was so bad I would have had to get 84% in the exam to make an A on numbers alone. Maybe we've been scaled.</li>
<li>The Micro grade is a relief - the exam didn't go so hot, really.</li>
<li>The Macro grade is purely a result of ballsing up the exam. It's not unexpected, but that doesn't keep it from hurting. <i>I knew what I was doing, and I still messed it all up.</i> Dammit, fibby, when will you learn?</li>
</ul>
<p>Now the lecturers will all get together in a big meeting to determine what "class" of Honours we should each receive. My grade point average should ensure me a First, but the Honours grading process is so arcane that there's no certainty until the results are actually out. That could be as much as a month away.</p>Gaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07556494270770913766noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7346325551337481865.post-22056580487830253542009-11-15T15:07:00.002+13:002010-01-19T12:33:01.068+13:00<p><font size="1"><i>That's funny, it looks as if I never got around to posting this when I wrote it in early November...</i></font></p>
<p>After my midyear exams I summarised, for each course, <a href="http://undergrad-rhapsody.blogspot.com/2009/06/tired-and-underprepared.html">the expected number of students answering each possible set of exam questions</a>, given by the quotient of the number of students and the number of possible exams in that course.</p>
<p>Here's the corresponding summary for my finals. This time I'm including detail about the question choices, because it helps make more sense of the value of $E(x)$.</p>
<table border=1 cellpadding=4 cellspacing=2>
<tr>
<td><b>Course</b></td><td><b>Students</b></td><td><b>Choice of</b></td><td><b>From</b></td><td><i><b>E(x)</b></i></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Macro</td> <td>14</td> <td>1</td> <td>2</td> <td>7</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Modelling</td> <td>7</td> <td>3</td> <td>6</td> <td>0.35</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Micro</td> <td>8</td> <td>2, 1 and 1</td> <td>4, 2 and 2</td> <td>0.8</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Metrics</td> <td>7</td> <td>3</td> <td>4</td> <td>1.75</td>
</tr>
</table>Gaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07556494270770913766noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7346325551337481865.post-85518649005344758502009-11-13T11:57:00.001+13:002009-11-13T12:01:42.015+13:00Vitriolic, patriotic stand, fight, bright light, feeling pretty psyched<p>The Metrics exam was <i>good</i>. Prof Metrics had obviously learned from our variously abysmal performance on the midterm, and he gave us a nice present for our last exam - math problems instead of essays! I had fun, except for where I forgot everything I knew about <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dickey-Fuller_test" target="_blank">Dickey-Fuller tests</a>, but that bit was only worth around 10%.</p>
<p>Well, wouldya look at that:</p>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGWwGRvg6rhoo0csjo6qMUChwfRH263awz2idSI2-36BpZIzo8fyrwrToR2cEHotC70Ob8VdWFFR_6S9n2Q37GPtV_gvK0fX-96JUaMbHVhVXKyLC0h6ova451cmoOon-jbHmehvmi0M0/s1600-h/end+of+the+year+as+we+know+it.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGWwGRvg6rhoo0csjo6qMUChwfRH263awz2idSI2-36BpZIzo8fyrwrToR2cEHotC70Ob8VdWFFR_6S9n2Q37GPtV_gvK0fX-96JUaMbHVhVXKyLC0h6ova451cmoOon-jbHmehvmi0M0/s320/end+of+the+year+as+we+know+it.png" /></a></div>
<p>What do I do now? Where am I supposed to be? Who am I? Suddenly no one is expecting anything of me. How shall I react to this?</p>Gaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07556494270770913766noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7346325551337481865.post-63403210272777537972009-11-12T21:30:00.001+13:002009-11-12T21:30:00.500+13:00There's still time to change the road you're on<p>Today was the last day I will ever have to spend studying for Honours. The last day of pacing the house alone, trying to force myself to work. The last day of reading and writing, reading and writing, until my brain feels like a revolving door for information.</p>
<p>The econometrics exam is in 12 hours. The fact that I have to sit an exam is dwarfed in my mind by the fact that it's my last exam. When I consider it, I'm fairly unconcerned - mostly because this particular exam is without precedent, so I have no idea what to be specifically worried about.</p>Gaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07556494270770913766noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7346325551337481865.post-51546915365100533652009-11-11T16:40:00.000+13:002009-11-11T16:40:48.196+13:00In his armchair, you can feel his disease<p>Another good exam in Micro. It wasn't as great as Modelling, but it was perfectly fine. I ran out of time to do all of the low-marks part for which I hadn't prepared so well, but I'm very confident in my work on the high-marks parts.</p>
<p>After the exam we all stood around and sort of looked at each other. It was as if none of us wanted to admit the course is over (for most of the class, this also means the <i>year</i> is over). I guess I'm not alone in loving Micro.</p>
<p>I asked the exam supervisor why they're <a href="http://undergrad-rhapsody.blogspot.com/2009/06/i-beg-to-dream-and-differ.html">still having to take away our question papers</a> after the exam. Apparently the official reason is still swine flu. I don't understand. If the question papers get germs on from a coughing class member, won't our pens and things then have germs as well? How does confiscating only the papers prevent the spread of disease? And what happens to the papers now? Unless they're destroyed immediately, they'll still be effective transmission vectors regardless of whether students take them home or not.</p>
<p>Now Metrics, Friday, and that's it!</p>Gaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07556494270770913766noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7346325551337481865.post-40385947228287334382009-11-10T21:30:00.002+13:002009-11-10T21:30:00.417+13:00Flicker from the opposite loft<p>The Micro exam is in 12 hours. As usual with Micro, I'm incredibly relaxed. Notice how I haven't made any <a href="http://undergrad-rhapsody.blogspot.com/search/label/wanting">wanting</a> posts about Micro; that's because I never had that sensation of just not wanting to read about it.</p>
<p>And in 14 hours, Micro will be over forever and ever. OMG... I'm going to <i>miss</i> Micro.</p>Gaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07556494270770913766noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7346325551337481865.post-76662391575317517662009-11-07T17:47:00.001+13:002009-11-07T17:49:39.565+13:00Pink, brown, yellow, orange, and blue<p>Back on form. Yeee-ah.</p>
<p>The Modelling exam was great; of the six questions (choice of three), there were five I could have done pretty well. I chose the three questions which related to the two Reserve Bank models we studied. All went well, I wrote lots and didn't run out of time in any dramatic way. Naturally I was mid-sentence, nay, mid-word when the examiners called time; you don't stop writing with time to spare just because you've finished the core of what you wanted to say. Hopefully Prof Modelling will be able to decipher what I meant by "a combination of fan charts and traditional multiple proj".</p>
<p>As for those 65 INFO 102 students, by the end of the exam only three were left in the room. Must have been an easy exam for them. Yeah... I remember first year.</p>Gaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07556494270770913766noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7346325551337481865.post-45123169791300984522009-11-06T21:30:00.002+13:002009-11-06T21:30:00.643+13:00The Furies breathing down your neck<p>Exam in 12 hours. Strangely hopeful. <a href="http://undergrad-rhapsody.blogspot.com/2009/10/you-cannot-reach-me-now.html">You know the deal</a>. Except this time, I feel as if there may be some justification for being hopeful; I've spent the day cuddled up with <a href="http://www.rbnz.govt.nz/research/kitt/3715912.pdf" target="_blank">the KITT paper</a> (yes, it's big enough to cuddle) and have actually been enjoying it. Bizarre, I know. But probably a good omen for the Modelling exam.</p>Gaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07556494270770913766noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7346325551337481865.post-87259144576167208152009-11-05T12:16:00.000+13:002009-11-05T12:16:09.089+13:00The second time that I followed you<p>Gah, I don't want to read about <a href="http://www.rbnz.govt.nz/research/kitt/index.html" target="_blank">KITT</a> today, I want to do the exercises from <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Mathematics-Civilization-H-L-Resnikoff/dp/0486246744/ref=ed_oe_p" target="_blank"><i>Mathematics in Civilization</i> by H. L. Resnikoff and R. O. Wells</a>. I've had this book lying on my shelf untouched for over four years, and last night I happened to pick it up and read a short section about real numbers, and suddenly I'm burning to spend more time with it.</p>Gaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07556494270770913766noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7346325551337481865.post-70737028774237087942009-11-04T09:36:00.002+13:002009-11-08T16:01:39.423+13:00Still frames in your mind<p>Actually, I do kinda want to read about <a href="http://www.rbnz.govt.nz/research/search/article.asp?id=4078" target="_blank">FPS</a> today. But I also want to download all the old photos which are still on my camera, sort out which ones need to be preserved as replacements for the ones which got corrupted on my old hard drive, and then delete the rest. It'll be a half-day's work.</p>Gaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07556494270770913766noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7346325551337481865.post-74926825474481739892009-11-03T11:28:00.001+13:002009-11-04T09:47:30.689+13:00Business continues below<p>The marks for the last Micro assignment were finally posted on Sunday (Dr A Micro had an accident which delayed his marking a bit). I got 92%, which is fine with me. Someone got 96%. That's fine too.</p>
<p>The next exam is Modelling, on Saturday. The seven of us are in with 65 INFO 102 students. The other 117 of them are split across three other exam rooms (yeah, I remember undergrad). We'll probably have to sit in the front two rows of our room so the examiners can distinguish us from the first years; I don't mind so much, as long as the little tykes are <i>quiet</i>.</p>Gaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07556494270770913766noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7346325551337481865.post-64872490685028986812009-11-01T17:18:00.001+13:002009-11-01T17:22:27.128+13:00I will let you down<p>The Macro exam was almost exactly the exam I had prepared for, with no questions on unexpected topics, but a time management fail led to me doing only about two-thirds of the paper. I kept thinking I'd shortly unstick the bit I was stuck on, and then suddenly there was no more time. Fail. I probably will not get that A-.</p>Gaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07556494270770913766noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7346325551337481865.post-76575511987819906652009-10-30T21:30:00.002+13:002009-10-30T21:30:01.433+13:00You cannot reach me now<p>The Macro exam is in 12 hours. I feel oddly hopeful. There's really no reason to feel this way.</p>
<p>I need 68% to get an A-, so I probably won't disgrace myself. But I probably won't do myself proud, either.</p>Gaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07556494270770913766noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7346325551337481865.post-4558725077582310832009-10-29T11:17:00.002+13:002009-10-29T23:46:17.349+13:00He's right, but I lose my will<p>I don't want to read about real business cycle theory today, I want to learn <a href="http://www.sagemath.org/" target="_blank">Sage</a>.</p>
<p>No, really. Any material on RBC theory includes a mention of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hodrick-Prescott_filter" target="_blank">Hodrick-Prescott filter</a>, and every time I see that I'm seized by a wild desire to implement it myself, because it looks so invitingly simple:</p>
\[ \min_{y_{t}^{g}} \; \sum_{t=1}^{\infty} \left[ \left( y_t - y_{t}^{g} \right)^2 + \lambda \left[ \left( y_{t+1}^{g}-y_{t}^{g} \right) - \left( y_{t}^{g} - y_{t-1}^{g} \right) \right]^2 \right] \]
<p>Where $y_t$ is the data point of series $y$ at time $t$, and $y_{t}^{g}$ is the data point of the trend series $y^g$ at time $t$ (the output of the filter). The above optimisation penalises for volatility in the estimated trend as well as deviations from the actual data. $\lambda$ is just a weighting parameter.</p>
<p>Anyway, I'm just burning to code this up in GAUSS (I'd have to do the calculus by hand, but GAUSS would love the minimisation part). However, soon my academic career will be over and I will no longer be able to rely on university licenses for analytical engines. For hobby projects, it's best if I start relying on something open, like Sage; the HP filter seems like a good experimental project for learning with when I switch to my new open engine. But I want to do it <i>now</i>.</p>Gaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07556494270770913766noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7346325551337481865.post-18823852584390000442009-10-28T09:05:00.000+13:002009-10-30T18:04:42.395+13:00The work for somebody else's dream<p>Oh man, I <i>particularly</i> don't want to read about rational expectations today.</p>
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<p>I want to go have a picnic somewhere. Then get ice cream from Kaffee Eis and wander along the waterfront with it. Then cook something exquisite and time-consuming for dinner.</p>Gaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07556494270770913766noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7346325551337481865.post-73109334358404186832009-10-26T19:53:00.001+13:002009-10-27T12:22:29.777+13:00The most hated on<p>I hate studying for exams. One of my greatest strengths is my ability to assimilate a large amount of information in a very short time; I've developed this as a result of six years of hating studying for exams. (<b>Edit:</b> I should clarify that I'm not particularly proud of this skill. It lets me get away with being uncommonly lazy.)</p>
<p>Just because I can do it, though, doesn't mean I have to enjoy it. I'd much rather be doing problems, or even writing summaries, than just pouring information into myself. As a happy medium, my favourite method of exam preparation is working through old exams.</p>
<p>Two of my four exams this trimester are utterly without precedent. Metrics this year is being taught by a different person, and in quite a different way, from previous years. As a result, last year's exam is not a very good guide to this year's. All we have to go on is the structure of the midterm and the content of the problem sets. This is not too bad; it's not that difficult to generalise from one to the other.</p>
<p>Macro has undergone a serious change in structure this year. Although the content covered seems to be broadly similar, the exam format we've been told to expect is totally different from last year's exam. We have two sections of two questions each, and a choice only on section B. Last year had six questions with a simple choice of three. We have, apparently, "a mix of essays and problem solving". Last year's questions were all essay questions.</p>
<p>In addition to the decrease in choice - we get to leave out one, whereas last year's lot got to leave out three, lucky bastards - we're also suffering badly from a lack of precedent on content. In a course with problem sets, it's generally safe to assume that the exam will be at a similar level to the problem sets. This course has had only one problem set, and that related only to the second half of the course.</p>
<p>As we are given to expect "a mix of essays and problem solving" in both sections, we'll probably be faced with at least one analytical exam question based on the first half of the course (which we won't have an option to skip). Although we've been given analytical material in spades in the assigned reading, it's not clear at all whether we're expected to have learned this in much detail. Do we need to practice only techniques which were demonstrated in class, or do we need to understand all the hard-out math in the academic papers we've covered? Are we going to be asked to prove known results or derive unexpected ones? Will we be given the assumptions or asked to lay down our own? Will there be calculus?</p>
<p>Asking Dr Macro any of these questions draws a response along the lines of "all the course material is examinable". Yep. That's... so helpful.</p>Gaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07556494270770913766noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7346325551337481865.post-16782491953135289912009-10-25T09:10:00.000+13:002009-10-25T18:19:47.712+13:00That's okay, my will is good<p>I don't want to read about investment theory today, I want to walk the Skyline Walkway.</p>Gaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07556494270770913766noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7346325551337481865.post-91709528387790118762009-10-23T10:02:00.000+13:002009-10-25T18:07:30.939+13:00Good day to be alive, he said<p>I don't want to read about unit roots today, I want to make Vienna bread.</p>Gaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07556494270770913766noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7346325551337481865.post-69512996360533869082009-10-21T15:17:00.003+13:002009-10-25T18:08:28.031+13:00Most of what I know<p>After a day of agonising in terror about collecting my marked Modelling essay, I finally picked it up to find that it got an A+. This was a shock. You may recall that I <a href="http://undergrad-rhapsody.blogspot.com/2009/10/too-young-too-smart-too-dumb.html">didn't much enjoy</a> the process of writing this essay, so I assumed that Prof Modelling wouldn't much enjoy reading it, either. Well, maybe he didn't, but apparently he thought it was okay nonetheless.</p>
<p>The Prof questioned my use of the word "robustify", which gave me an odd sort of satisfaction - I was right to remove it from <a href="http://undergrad-rhapsody.blogspot.com/2009/04/i-write-my-sentence.html">the other essay</a> I wrote for this professor. He also questioned my word count. I'm not sure whether he means that he suspects I've broken the word limit, or that he'd wanted me to include an estimate of the word count. If the former, he was right, of course.</p>
<p>As for the grade, I can only <a href="http://undergrad-rhapsody.blogspot.com/2009/10/on-his-shoulder-siamese-cat.html">quote myself</a>: "I have a record of highly inaccurate estimations of the quality of my own essays."</p>
<p>As this essay was worth 25% of the course, I'm now on a high A (low A+, if you prefer) going into the exam, undoubtedly a good position to be in.</p>Gaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07556494270770913766noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7346325551337481865.post-41626133946180751802009-10-20T23:56:00.007+13:002009-10-21T15:18:11.833+13:00Like damn, we just swapped<p>This weekend I did my last ever Micro assignment. I made it the best I possibly could, which coming from a perfectionist like me, means it's something of a <i>tour de force</i> (hopefully). It goes on and fricking on. Every base is covered, every possible interpretation, special case and side issue discussed. And at the end of it all, the entirety of all the conclusions are summed up like this:</p>
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<p>My last ever assignment and I've finally learned how to draw pictures in $\LaTeX$! How cool is that?</p>
<p>Technically I shouldn't post that until after the assignment due date (Friday), but if any of my classmates do happen to read this (unlikely), they'll already know that it's meaningless without any derivation. And <i>that</i> took five pages.</p>
<p>The experiment which was in this paragraph failed epically and has been removed.</p>Gaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07556494270770913766noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7346325551337481865.post-56896246318379135612009-10-16T16:17:00.001+13:002009-10-16T16:17:48.810+13:00The dawning of the rest of our lives<p>Day off today. Returned my failed external hard drive to the retailer. Got my Pixar fix by seeing <i>Up</i> in 2D. Tried the new Grand Angus McDonald's burger (it almost lives up to the hype). Got 100% in the Macro problem set.</p>
<p>Mr Macro, marking my problem set, seemed a little confused by the following statement about the polynomial $1-\alpha L - \beta \gamma L^{2}$ in $L$:</p>
<blockquote>
If both roots are complex ($\alpha^{2}+4\beta\gamma < 0$; note this can only occur if $\beta \gamma < 0$), the real and imaginary parts of the roots are
\[ \Re = \frac{\alpha}{-2\beta\gamma} \qquad \Im = \pm \frac{\sqrt{- \left( \alpha^{2} + 4\beta\gamma \right)}}{-2 \beta\gamma} \]
</blockquote>
<p>He circled the negative sign inside the square root in the expression for the imaginary part, wrote a long comment, then crossed it out and gave me full marks. I know my handling of complex numbers is always a little idiosyncratic (due to self-teaching), but I didn't think it was that odd.</p>Gaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07556494270770913766noreply@blogger.com0