I really don’t like it when the future is uncertain. Since I was a kid, I had my career path all figured out. I was fascinated with computer technology and that’s what I wanted to do. I put all my energy to build myself toward that goal. Now that I decided to take one step back to look at a bigger picture, I’m not sure what I want to do any more. I like what I’m learning in industrial engineering and operations research, but I’m not sure where I would want to go, or what kind of job function I want to do. I wish someone creates a virtual job machine or something that would allow me to trying out different jobs to see what I like the most. I guess life is not all that easy…

So, should I continue to do Ph.D? or should I just get master and get a job? Is Ph.D. worth the time and money? One thing I know for sure is that I don’t think I would be able to do it if I don’t get financial support. What about the time spent? What would I do afterward?

I decided to work on my resume today… just in case…

Today is a very sad day…

I usually check my blog’s traffic activity every couple of days just to see how many people comes to my blog, where they are from, and what read or view on my here. I just checked the log again today and found that someone browsed the blog the other day from the business department at the university. It was interesting that it was a direct link (typed into the browser), and the address used was the old one too. I found it to be interesting as I do not know that many people from there, so of course the first prime suspects would be one of my professors. Being a curious kitty like I am, I did some digging and found that my suspicion is probably right. It seems that a professor has found my blog! *gasps*…

So, Hi there!!! you know who you are! Thank you for checking my blog out!

While I was keeping myself up-to-date with daily news, I saw this 10 Honeymoon Hotspots headline on the front page of CNN.com. The first thing I had on my mind was “I bet Thailand is in there!”, and so obviously I had to click on it to find out. (Not) surprisingly, Thailand is listed as one of the hotspots. So, one point to Thailand! Yayyy!

study math from powerpoint slides or transparencies. It seems that a growing number of professors are using transparencies to aid in teaching, which I think generally is a good thing for certain topics. However, I always have trouble following in class when it comes to mathematics on transparencies. With transparencies, professors usually go through what’s on the slides verbally in a quick manner. It usually takes a while for me to digest what is written on the slides and i would get lost very quickly. Thus, I personally prefer classes in which the professor uses only blackboard and chalk, with minimal uses of slides for lengthy examples among other minor things. I find this method much better, because as they teach and write on the board, they usually involve students in the thoughts process of what actually goes on the board and eventually onto the students’ notes. It does take a while to get used to the method as it requires a lot of attention as well as extensive amount of note-taking, but I find that I can follow along much easier than the former approach.

Over the course of almost 5 years as an undergrad as well as a grad student at Penn State, I would like to commend two professors whom I think do an excellent job at teaching courses in mathematics. The first one is Dr. Winnie Li, over at the Mathematics department, who taught me in ODE in undergrad. The other one is Dr. Tom Cavalier, who’s teaching me Graph Theory. What both of them have in common is the ability to teach without having *any* notes with them at all. They could just go on and on over the class materials and were able to present them with great clarity. The only time they would use stickies is for reminding them of the example(s) they want to give in class. Amazing people, they are…

If you have taught me a course in mathematics, and have used powerpoint slides and somehow stumbled upon this blog, please do not get me wrong though. I don’t think that it’s your method of teaching that’s the problematic. It’s probably just how I learn things… judging from the fact that other people seem to be doing just fine with the slides!