First ever conference paper!

[compilerbitch]

It was today, 5pm, Lecture Theatre 1 of the William Gates Building, to the 15th UK Asynchronous Forum. It went pretty well, I think -- I got some positive feedback from people, and plenty of questions-from-bigwigs, which is always a good sign I think.

Shortly thereafter, I went along to Trinity Hall for the conference dinner. Which was brilliant -- lots of really good conversation, in part facilitated by an interesting graph colouring problem: if thou is from Cam, thou shalt not sit next to someone from Cam. Similar rules were applied to visitors from Newcastle and Manchester, so it mixed things up nicely. Predictably enough, there was lots of good food, champagne, white wine, red wine and seriously good port. I am still more than slightly drunk...

All in all, a very good day.



(The paper itself is here, if you're nosy!)

Comments

[791-43.livejournal.com]

Yey - go you!
*shakes pom-poms*

[compilerbitch.livejournal.com]

:-)

[trurl.livejournal.com]

Neat drawing! Where is it from?

[compilerbitch.livejournal.com]

I drew it. doseybat made me do it!

(I shaded it digitally, after scanning the original line drawing)

[x-mass.livejournal.com]

so cam is just slightly better than the other place then :)

[compilerbitch.livejournal.com]

Yes, definitely. The atmosphere is completely different here.

[doseybat.livejournal.com]

i think i know what the style reminds me of. the cartoons in pink floyd's "the wall" - the film.. very atmospheric. you arent getting away with not drawing any more, y'know!

[compilerbitch.livejournal.com]

What is it with me and Pink Floyd? My music keeps getting compared with them, now it's my cartoons, and I haven't even seen 'The Wall' or even listened to much of their music!

I shall have to draw more.

Your user pic keeps waving its leafy at me, you know!

[ko.livejournal.com]

Hi. My name is Jessica and I'm hoping to into a PhD program in fluid dynamics next year out at your school. I was wondering how in the world one picks a college. There are so many! I like trees, I'm pretty relaxed, love music, liked to meet people but also like to have my distance... any college that particularly stands out? Also, I've worked on a research proposal but how explicit does it have to be? I'm fairly open to working with most anything in applied maths. Sorry to bombard you with lots of questions but it's hard to get advice from all the way over in Seattle, USA.

[compilerbitch.livejournal.com]

Choosing colleges is pretty tricky. Im at St. Edmunds -- I'd not particularly recommend it as a PhD student, I find it a bit isolating sometimes. If you want old colleges, then Trinity, Kings, Caius (pronounced 'Keys'), Trinity Hall, Emmanuel, etc. are all nice, but tend to cater mostly for undergrads. If I had my selections to make again, I'd probably go for the dedicated graduate colleges first, which are probably the best bet for being looked after the best, but if you really want to go the 'Old College' route, go for it and good luck!

If you're going to be in the maths faculty, Churchill is modern, nice and just over the road from the faculty building. You might also consider poking around the computer lab a little too -- a lot of the work that goes on there is effectively applied maths.

As regards a PhD proposal, it needs to be plausible, but doesn't actually bind you to anything. I did a 90 degree turn after about two weeks, which is regarded as fairly normal.

Best advice I can give is find a supervisor who wants you first, then fill in the rest as you go along. In my case, I did get a certain amount of help in drafting my proposal. The paperwork is quite non-trivial, so you really need to get stuck into it ASAP.

PS: My actual PhD proposal is here, by the way.