In a week, it would be appropriate to rename this blog “Angela’s Germany Adventures.” I’m not going to do that, but this is my way of announcing the news.

Actually, the next week is a little insane. (And it’s not going to slow down much after that!) I can’t complain too much. Some amazing opportunities are presenting themselves to me right now and this is the most exciting summer of my life. I’m going to get to have a lot of new or semi-new experiences, and I don’t even have to study for a PhD qualifying exam like I’ve had to do the past two summers. So overall, things are looking great for me.

In two days I’m moving to a different (cheaper and pet-friendly) apartment across town. I’m trying really hard to go into this one completely prepared so it will go smoothly for everyone involved. I can’t wait until I have a job that pays well enough that I can hire movers. The process of moving yourself is exhausting and annoying. I’ve only packed one of 6 rooms so far, but it’s going much faster than expected. And only four of the rooms (bedroom, office, living room, and kitchen) will be substantial.

Then 5 days after moving, I’m getting on a plane to Germany. It will be my first time ever outside of the continental US. I’ve visited 25 of the 50 states now, but Germany will be my first foreign country. I’m not going for sightseeing though. My PhD adviser has a research collaborator that works at a German university and he visits him there every summer. This year he invited me to come with him for a few weeks to work with them in person. It’s a really exciting opportunity, and I won’t take it for granted. My research progress the past year has certainly been respectable for a 3rd year grad student, and I’m glad he is choosing to reward me for that. I’ll be working full 8 hour days on mathematical research for the first time since my summer research experience as an undergrad 4 years ago. I should have my current project done by the end of my time in Germany, then I can start writing it up into a real paper. It’s a really exciting time. My undergrad research also led to a publishable paper, but I feel much more involved in and responsible for this work. The differences are that I spent a lot more time and effort on this problem (over a year rather than less than 6 months), and that I know a lot more math now so I understand what’s going on at a deeper level. I’m also getting an exhaustive result, rather than a partial solution to the problem.

So, I’ll be overseas until the end of the month. Then I’ll have a week to recover and prepare, then I start teaching a 5 week stats class at a local community college. I’m pretty excited about this opportunity too, because I have a lot more control over how the course is put together. The textbook is chosen for me, but other than that I have full reign over my domain, within reason. During this time, I’ll also be working part time at my normal university as a tutor and TA. It’s going to be busy, but as I said, I don’t have to study for a qual, so I have the time.

After summer classes end, I get another 2 week break to relax and prepare for the fall semester before it starts. I’ll be teaching an actual calculus class in the fall, which is another exciting thing I’m looking forward to. Last semester I taught business calculus. Those students hated me. Their evaluations at the end of the semester were whiny bordering on angry. I find that a little ironic, because they were all nice and polite to my face, but apparently that was an act. I think their anger was a little misplaced. They were probably just angry they were expected to take a real college math class (a decision the college of business administration makes, not the math department or the individual instructor), but many of their complaints were in the ballpark of my ‘expectations were too high’ and I ‘used too much math and didn’t treat it like a business class’ (it’s listed under MATH not BUSN and is staffed by mathematicians, not business people). The greatest part of that complaint is that I DID greatly change how I taught this class compared to how I teach a pure math class. I made it a lot easier, I gave a lot more examples, I was much more lenient when grading, I lectured a lot slower, etc. Oh well. It was a good experience for me to have, and I could do it again if I had to, but I think there’s something about my personality and the personality of the typical business person that just doesn’t line up. I felt this way when I was in a corporate environment, and I guess it’s the same with business students.

My real passion is for math research, and I do really like teaching math, but it’s a real challenge to teach people who don’t want to learn and aren’t on board with math being important to their education in their field. Honestly, the straight-up humanities students (history, English, art, journalism, etc.) who take the stats course are much more engaged than the business majors who take business calculus, even though one would think it should be clearer how math skills are important in business than in journalism.

On the other hand, in the fall I’ll be teaching calculus to future engineers, natural scientists (physics/chem, I think), and mathematicians. They theoretically should be a more willing audience. And the material is much more fun and interesting when you can delve deeper into the “why,” which is the part that is missing from business calculus. Trust me, the business majors REALLY don’t care about “why” anyway, so it’s better that they get an applied calculus course designed with them in mind rather than a pure calculus class.

So that’s what I have coming up over the next 3-4 months. I’m sure it will be great. I’ll try to take pictures in Germany and keeps notes about stories and observations. I probably won’t have much time to write while I’m there because I’ll be busy and want to take in the experience as much as I can in the few short weeks I’ll be there. But I will definitely want to write about it when I get back. And if and when I get settled in the new place, I might write about that too. Plenty of bloggable material coming up, so hopefully I won’t neglect this space as much as I have the last several months.