26 July 07 - 20:47My light reading for tonight

Gus Hedges - "George, can we pool our brainspaces in a center of excellence?"

ITIL

Arggh! (Mind you I did ask for it, ... oh well ...).

polly - IT - two comments / No trackbacks - § ¶

24 July 07 - 12:19Mathematics education in the media

The Australian has an article on the continuing problems with mathematics education in Australia. It's not just an issue with mathematics being unpopular with students - there has been a watering down of the material taught in mathematics' classes at high school - which results in the need for bridging courses at university. When I was at Monash, I was a mediocre pure maths major. I passed my third year subjects, but had no intention of going on to do honours. I enjoyed logic, number theory and abstract algebra, but sucked at analysis and PDEs. That said, I got a lot out of doing a pure maths major, and it has been important for my career development. I now work as a sys admin in the field of High Performance Computing - and the skills I learnt in problem-solving have been invaluable in this occupation. I was fortunate enough to go through my degree in the middle of the massive cutbacks in science funding at Monash, rather than at the end of it, so I was still able to take subjects in advanced set theory, logic and ring theory, which were subsequently cancelled. (Unfortunately I missed out on doing topology by a year as it was cancelled before I could do it). I get the impression that it is now mostly the really gifted students who intend to do honours and post grad degrees stick with an undergrad maths major these days - despite the usefulness of an undergrad mathematics major for many other fields.

When kids studying first year uni calculus don't already know what a limit is (this is really common - I've talked with plenty of tertiary mathematics lecturers and students who say this is the case), then they're already so far behind where they need to be, it's no wonder most of them ditch mathematics as soon as they've covered whatever compulsory units they're required to do in their degrees.

polly - science - two comments / No trackbacks - § ¶

24 July 07 - 11:59Life rolls along

I have been really busy over the last few months, but things have been pretty good for the most part. I seem to be catching every virus going around, though (I've just gotten a big bottle of omega3 tablets, so I have to remember to take the things).

Daniel had a great birthday party on Friday night - as I was already starting to feel crook, I stuck to one glass of wine and a cigar (which was way too nice - I think I'll probably give away the rest of them so I don't give in to temptation). Saturday was clean up time - and thenwe had dinner at a friends, which was really lovely. Sunday was a write-off as Olav had to prep for his check up on Monday. The good news is that all is well, and he's completely healthy, which is a big relief. It's 12 months before he needs to have another endoscopy, so he can relax now, and just worry about his thesis .

We have been watching Torchwood on Monday nights, and it was nice to see it finally break its pattern of having a good episode followed by a bad one. Last night's effort was really creepy in places, and I really liked it, but I couldn't stop thinking about Hot Fuzz all the way through the episode.

polly - default - three comments / No trackbacks - § ¶