pebbles

Someone's a little touchy.

He made fun of me for being a girl. I made fun of him for going to UChicago. Oh boy, I wonder who's got the upper moral ground on this one.

have a sense of humor, won't you?



p.s. try to keep the PDA to a minimum. fondling should be kept to PMs.

phuriku

??? o_O;;; ummm what? who? me? huh?

No one does. Unfortunately, there are more girls than there are UChicago students. So I'm at a huge disadvantage here. Not that the UChicago students would support me anyhow... they'd probably tell me to shut up and stop giving a bad name to their school.

InquilineKea

Well, congrats everyone, this thread has now beaten Caltech vs. MIT in Engineering (Caltech vs MIT for engineering) on the same day that it has beaten the EA Roster thread. Fewer flames and trolls than Caltech vs. MIT in Engineering, too. ivyaccepted (post count of 4) must be proud.

Phuriku, I PMed you more about polyphasic sleep. Aggh, so much can be done with 3 extra hours per day. It could be 3 extra hours of video games (), but nah, I want to learn more math!

molliebatmit

(Nice edit there in #347.)

I am bored with this thread.

As I see it, MIT is looking to admit people who didn't peak in high school -- they want students who will continue to grow and blossom and become more awesome as a result of an MIT education. Their opinions about the best and the brightest aren't always concurrent with yours. That's it.

phuriku

Thanks. I thought it was a wise move before I got totally flamed.

Me too. We've already talked about every single (possible) flaw in MIT's admissions, so yeah. Now we're just going back to past arguments and using more silly attacks. We're approaching Godwin's Law having to be invoked. XD

Math gets boring after a while. I can't do more than 3 hours of it at a time (with maybe 3 periods of this per day, max). And since we're alike, it's probably the same with you.

And are you seriously capable of getting 8 hours of sleep at night? Here, 6 hours would be a blessing.

pebbles

"before I got totally flamed."

by me?

pebbles

this caught my eye however

what? WHERE??

There is a 6 unit freshman advising seminar on PROBLEM-SOLVING. Um, that's pretty much the closest they have, I believe. You're thinking of Harvard. MIT does well on the Putnam because there is a lot of interest, and also because we have a huge cross-section of the most brilliant math kids in the country. It says nothing about you or me or whether we're so brilliant or we deserve to be here. I wouldn't do so hot on the Putnam.

InquilineKea

Well, American universities are now more prestigious than mainland European ones because of you-know-who. There, Godwin's Law. =P

9 hours of math. Yes, but we can insert an additional period of study time by cutting into sleep. Not just more math - I value neurobiology/behavioral psychology a lot as well (and frankly, a whole sleuth of other subjects). I want to finish my Christof Koch book soo much. In fact, the most creative individuals are those who study many different fields.

But you're right - I can't do more than several hours of math before I want to do something else.

It's possible at any institution. Even Caltech (though I doubt many at Caltech actually do 8 hrs). I wonder if a lot of Caltech students do polyphasic sleep. Some of them are certainly aware of modafinil (an expensive and Schedule IV substitute for polyphasic).

phuriku

http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Mathematic...Home/index.htm

Look at the last sentence under "course description". If you're too lazy to, I'll show you what it says:

"Students in this course are expected to compete in a nationwide mathematics contest for undergraduates." The word "contest" is a link to the page: http://math.scu.edu/putnam/

This is OBVIOUSLY a course designed solely for preparing for the Putnam.

I also see nowhere that says this is solely for freshman.

Psh. There's such an interest in it because MIT's obsessed with this prestige stuff. I'll also say that the Putnam is very hackable. It's harder to hack than the SATs, obviously, but it's still doable, as you can see from the courses that exist solely for preparing for the Putnam. There ARE typical questions on the Putnam and if you learn every method to attack the typical problem, then you're likely to do well. It says nothing about actual intelligence.

You and every other MIT student.

Yup. I use the extra time for reading (especially in philosophy), mostly. Reading (carefully) takes a lot of time and so when I was getting 7-8 hours with one period of sleep a few years ago, I wasn't able to do very much reading. Polyphasic sleeping solved the problem though. In the next few years, I'd like to change to absolute uberman, and I think my college schedule would be permissive of this. However, some of my friends have gotten sick from doing so, so I'm afraid to actually try.

pebbles

Well here's the part that you didn't paste:

"Course Description
This course,which is geared toward Freshmen, is an undergraduate seminar on mathematical problem solving."


Again, seminar. Those are the things we take for fun around here. Geared toward freshmen is a nice way of saying "for freshmen". No class is ever closed to anyone who wants to take it. Especially seminars.

I didn't say it doesn't exist. But to take it out of context like they are training little Putnam robots is a little out of hand, I think.

molliebatmit

The seminar is a freshman seminar -- see its listing on the Freshman Advising Seminar page.

InquilineKea

Wow, absolute uberman. It's really risky, seeing that it apparently takes 14 days to adjust, which can be killer (moreover, you could easily kill all that effort by accidentally oversleeping one night). Could you initially try by breaking it up into 3 periods, then 4, then more? (but then that hurts your adjusted schedule of two periods, and when that adjusted schedule is hurt, you might revert back to the normal 8-10 hr cycle). By the way, do you completely abstain from caffeine?

Paul Erdos did something totally different, combined with frequent napping. I so admire him...

phuriku

Woah. So a freshman seminar is REQUIRED? Well, what seminar do you think MIT math majors would pick? Obviously, this one. It's just a way to increase MIT's prestige.

Well, if you have a class dedicated solely to the Putnam, then this is a bit out of hand, I think... especially when a seminar is required of freshman and this looks like the obvious choice to math majors.

Perhaps your little "Putnam robots" theory isn't so far from the mark after all.

That sounds reasonable. I once tried it but stopped after two days. I was a wimp. I should really try it again.

Then again, I really don't want to stunt my growth and everyone always tells me that if I do this, I'll be short for the rest of my life. I don't know how it could have such an effect on growth, but I'm paranoid. I'll probably wait a while to try it.

No, I drink more caffeine than most. That's the cafeteria's fault though. They have energy drinks as a part of their fountain drink machine! Who could resist?!?

InquilineKea

Anyways though, phuriku, do you think that a class really helps more in Putnam preparation than a strong Putnam study group? (which many universities have?) They identify the strongest students, and then the students have additional social motivation (remember, everyone in the school is cheering for them) in order to them to succeed well in the Putnam.

LauraN

Did anyone say that a freshman seminar was required? Because it's totally not. If anything here is out of hand, it's your intense desire to turn every detail of the MIT undergraduate education into some conspiracy.

I took a freshman seminar. It was called "Designing Kid's Technologies." I played with toys. Literally. Putnam robots my ***.