Done with Applications!

Phew! Finally! The New Year has brought some much needed relief. I am DONE with Graduate Applications. This time, it better be for good. They are so expensive! When all is said and done, I applied to 10 schools (first time around I applied to 9). People do say that it's not an excessive amount, but don't tell that to my bank account. It got hit hard.

I got my first acceptance the first time around on Valentine's Day, so I still have a few more weeks to wait it out now. I think I have fairly good shots at getting into all the places I applied. I didn't apply to any real reach schools, except maybe one or two. 4 out of the 10 places, I applied to and got into back when I applied two years ago, so logic would say that I am more experienced this time around so I should get in again. But, then again, it really is extremely relative since I am being judged against the other applicants.

In other news, I nearly have my schedule completed for this semester, my final semester at JHU. I am taking a reading course with my advisor. I will be reading/discussing the text by Hilton and Stammback, "A Course in Homological Algebra." I am also continuing with the second semester of the Number Theory course. Alongside those two courses, I will also be working through my undergraduate Linear Algebra text, as I took the course freshman year of undergrad and found it to be a large disadvantage to have gotten so rusty on the material. Seems like things are lining up because it turns out that I will be teaching Linear Algebra during the summer session come May, so having it fresh in my memory will be helpful. I will hopefully finish this text by the end of March/beginning of April, and then will have a month or two to fully plan out the course schedule, exams, quizzes, and all the other stuff that comes with being an instructor to a course. This semester however, I am following up with my Calc I students from last semester and TAing Calc II. It isn't really calculus though, they cover a few integration techniques, basic differential equations, and then a lot of probability and statistics. It's quite a strange sequences, which is why I want to follow it through. I think it is meant for those seeking to take the MCAT's, since JHU is a large medical school. And lastly, I'll be continuing to attend the Topology seminars, and I will be organizing the slow-pitch seminars (series aimed at first and second year graduate students), and a few other odds and ends around the department, as I am a go-to girl for some of the faculty ...

It will be a busy semester for sure, with a lot of personal events going on as well and planning a move out of Maryland, but I'm looking forward to it all. It's an exciting time, and I'm very happy to have all these opportunities.