#math reu

Day 11/ 100 Days of Productivity - June 15th, 2020

Today is the first day of my summer research! I just did my morning affirmations & Scripture reading, had breakfast. I’m going out for a walk soon!

So I’m finally getting around to writing about this (also using it as a a draft for when I talk about REUs at math club next semester lol). This is based off my singular experience so of course it’ll vary quite a bit. Also yeah, it got really long.

First, some context. I went to an 8 week program several hours away from home at a mid-sized public university. It’s math department isn’t tiny, but mine is bigger I think (it has a math grad program while the REU school doesn’t for one) and definitely does more research (I go to a R1 school, the REU school is not). My REU was also in a mid-sized town compared to the small city I’m used to. There was two math projects going on, with 4 people on each plus a student from the university working with my project on a different grant and two professors mentoring each group. In addition, they support a much larger chemistry REU who we were housed with.

The Research

I worked on algebraic graph theory (the pure math project, while the other group did applied math). Specifically we looked at the abelian sandpile model, also known as chip firing and some other names.

We weren’t given a specific question and were more encouraged to find our own questions within the topic. We found the freedom really nice and interesting, but also felt like we would have gotten more done if we were given a narrower window of things to look at. Many REUs are given a specific question/project (the other group did) so it varies. Coming up with research questions is often considered harder than making discoveries themselves so it was frustrating in a way but I'm also glad I got to deal with it.

With 5 people working on the topic, we split up and formed groups multiple times through the summer. All of us ended up working on one question(looking at a group defined by sandpiles on strongly regular graphs; I’m not going to get into detail about the material itself but message/send an ask if you want to know more. You can also probably find our final write up online once our mentor posts it) but also had personal/two or three person mini-projects going on. My main one was not particularly successful since I eventually realized I was trying to do something similar to a conjecture that has been open since the 90s (abelian sandpiles was started in the 80s, possibly 70s?) which was sort of disappointing but still interesting.

We worked more computationally than I’m used to since graphs are just... kinda weird and the algebra was sort of borderline what we were capable of learning and doing in a short time. Note that you don’t have to have a strong background in the topic to work on an REU. You don’t have to have any background often times; the mentors will likely do a crash course on it during the first week or two which is intense but works just fine. I happened to have a little and one of my labmates had done algebraic graph theory research before, but the mentors didn't assume much prior knowledge (the application should be clear about if they do expect you to have certain background but typically, they just assume you’ve taken several math classes and have experience with proof writing. maybe a linear alg or programming class).

At the end of the summer, we did a presentation for the other group and anyone else in the department who wanted to attend and wrote up a final report together. Some programs expect something publishable, though I get the impression most are more aiming for “something that can be published with heavy refinement.” We’re encouraged to present at our home institution or at conferences if we can/want to and have a decent chance of getting funding from their department to do so if necessary.

The Work Day

Working at the REU is definitely the closest thing I’ve had to a standard job. The first weekish, we met at 9:30 and 1:00 each day for the background crash course lecture, with a break in between to work without the mentors and get lunch. The students would then work without the mentors until 5. After the first week or two, we only had a meeting with the mentors once every day or two but continued to work roughly from 9:30 to 5, with a lunch break from 12 to 1. This was really mostly our choice to do so. We all did some work outside the work day, but nothing like the amount of homework we're used to as math students. A lot of us found it baffling how much free time we had.

We were given several options for places to work in the math building and everyone typically worked in the same room but it wasn’t forced either. Sometimes I spent the afternoon in the library if I decided I couldn’t take social interaction and did work at a coffee shop downtown a couple mornings. We were also able to visit the mentors in their offices outside of meeting times.

They also did tea once a week where a different faculty talked about their experience/path to their current career and gave advice for grad school and the like.

Outside of Work

The mentors and organizers did a couple events. We were close to DC so they took us one Saturday (I went back on my own to visit counter-example another weekend which is when the squirrel encounters happened), one mentor hosted a memorial day bbq at his house and another did a game day at hers. Another mentor is an amateur astronomer so he took us up to a mountain top to stargaze one night which was fantastic. All the math students (from both projects plus those who were students there and were around for research or whatever) were invited to all the events and chem REU students were also invited to some of them. Likewise, we were invited to some events hosted by the chem REU though I went to less of those.

Mostly though, we were left to our own devices outside of work hours. We were put in a dorm which was effectively a 2 bed 2 bath apartment for 4 people which included a kitchen (we were able to buy meal swipes on a faculty plan and I bought some but mostly cooked). I didn’t bring a car so I often went grocery shopping with one of my labmates or roommate since the nearest grocery store was a bit over a mile away.

Downtown was a lot closer though, so I often walked there on my own to a restaurant or coffee shop. They had a nice downtown area with a lot of food options so that was really fun.

We were nestled between several forests so me and some of my labmates went hiking on Saturday and me and some of my roommates attempted camping once as well (story and some pictures here: https://sevenfactorial.tumblr.com/post/186095927170/yesterday-me-and-my-roommates-went-camping-except).

I was also able to keep up with various friends at home. A few of us read a linear alg book together for the first month or so of the summer and I continued playing d&d with a few of my friends on a bi-weekly basis via video chat (we usually do it over video chat in the first place actually), though we intentionally skipped during the last two-ish weeks of my REU.

This is obviously very dependent on where your REU is but kinda gets the gist of what a lot of programs do in terms of activities. Activities tended to be announced/planned pretty last minute though, so it’s a bit of a guessing game.

My Take Away

I liked going to my REU. For me, the most valuable things was definitely getting to meet math people from other places and having different experiences from what I’m used to.

I really love my department at home but comparing experiences was fascinating. Whether that’s what subjects are offered or how things are structured or how we interacted with our department, it varied a lot. Having that knowledge is useful in my opinion.

Life experiences are also really different. Two of my labmates are from small liberal arts schools in the NE and one is from an engineering college on the west coast. There aren’t fireflies on the west coast, for example, and not many in new england either, so everyone else was fascinated by how many there were (there were slightly more there than I’m used to since I live in a larger city, but not enough for me to find it unusual).

I also grew up in the same city I go to undergrad in too so spending two months somewhere else was really valuable for me. I had never been away from my parents for that long (I tend to not spend a lot of time at home but I visit for short amounts of time frequently) but I will be going out of state for grad school since there aren’t any grad programs in my state that I’m interested in. My parents were encouraging but pretty freaked out about me being gone for two months (we all survived).

Day 15/100 Days of Productivity

REU Day 5

Today is college attire day for my REU. We’re basically wearing our college merchandise for our Zoom calls. I’m getting used to the format of the program and other undergraduate students have been soooo supportive. I love getting to know them better! The math is hard. I don’t want to talk about it too much, but I’m learning a lot.

I didn’t update my tumblr with a post about yesterday because an upsetting incident occurred during my REU program and I wasn’t feeling up to it.

Day 12/100 Days of Productivity

AHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

Yesterday was so exhausting and exhilarating! It was the first day of my math summer research program (REU). I thought it would be an easy day because I had a grasp on the group theory material but I struggled a lot with the dihedral groups. I’m trying to work on it before the program continues in roughly 3 hours.

I’m mourning the fact that it isn’t in person, but I think we are doing a good job nonetheless. People aren’t quite as talkative on the Discord server that I made, but hopefully they’ll be a bit more social soon. It’s very clear which people are more outspoken. I’m still reallyyyy quiet when we’re talking about math... I hope I warm up and feel like I fit in soon. I hope I gain more confidence throughout the program. It’s scary!!!! 🙈