Bri McClain is a redshirt junior and team captain of the women's soccer team. She was selected to attend the Nebraska Conference for Undergraduate Women in Mathematics. The Conference is open to outstanding undergraduate women mathematicians at all stages of their careers. It is this weekend in Lincoln Nebraska and Bri has agreed to share her trip with The Blog!Thursday 1/28/2010
My first day in Nebraska and I have finally reached my destination. Nothing interesting has happened so far. I have been traveling all day since 7am and I didn't reach my hotel until about 8:30 this evening. The conference advisors were serious about dressing warm, because when we first arrived to our lay over in Denver it was a ridiculous 30 degrees, and then we made it to Omaha it was an even more ridiculous 12 degrees! I wasn't sure I was gonna make it, and I really didn't want to go outside of the airport at first, but I had to leave to catch the shuttle. The shuttle took me to my hotel and I was able to get settled in. I must add that I did a ton of math on the plane ride here, but there is a whole lot of more waiting for me this weekend. I am looking forward to it, and I'll let you know see how it goes. Talk to you tomorrow!
Friday 1/29/2010
So, today everyone came together for the first day of the conference. It was over 250 undergraduate women who study mathematics, and they all came from different parts of the US. It was exciting to see everyone, and hear their perspective on math, which happens to vary everywhere. We started off the day with our first plenary talk right after registration. THe talk consisted of an opening session and discussion on geometric group theory. We talked about how sets of symmetry form groups, and how this can be applied to abstract algebra and ping pong theory. I didn't fully understand everything in the talk, which is often very common, but I was able to get an idea of how symmetries can be applied outside of inverses and abstract algebra. It was interesting to hear. We next went to a panel discussion about careers in mathematics, and we were able to ask questions regarding how to find a job and how to juggle and job and your normal lifestyle. After that we had dinner, and that was pretty much the end of the night. We are all going to bed now, because tomorrow will be a long day with a lot more math!
Saturday 1/30/2010
Today seemed like it lasted forever. I must say I've had more analystical math discussions today thank I've had in my whole life! The day started off for me with a talk on knot theory, and the difference between lattic numbers and cube numbers. We next went to a seminar on Hadamard Matrices, which was a session I was completely lost in, and retained little to nothing from. After that I enjoyed a talk on stochastic and financial modeling, and how it can be used to predict recession and unemployment. I left that session with the idea that the recession will improve, but we can predict precisely when we can come back. The last session I went to, and the best one in my opinion, was about sudoku and shidoku boards. Shidoku has size four squares, instead of nine and have multiple solutions. We discussed that through an organized system of equations, we can solve each shidoku board for all of its solutions, by simply putting it all on paper. I haven't figured the whole system and proof out but I soon will! After all of the sessions we looked at posters made by students, and wen to lunch. To end the day we went to breakout sessions, where I learned about how tto pick and prepare for graduate school mathematics. After that we had dinner, and were let free for the rest of the evening. I am now in my hotel room, and yet to see what 250 mathematicians do with their free time. We'll see what happens, but all I know is I by far have had enough math for the day!
