Have you tried logarithms?
I’m not sure if this is a bad math joke about sleeping like a log, or if this is an actual suggestion for dealing with Gaussian process convolutions.
I’ve spent the last hour lying here trying to work out what the log of a GP-convolution would be.
The courses for PhD students at School A seem to be much more in my wheelhouse than the courses at School B. But LITERALLY EVERYTHING ELSE about School B is better, including the funding situation. And like, School A? Their program is undergoing a huge overhaul, including big-time faculty changes,…
Hi, grad student here.
The absolute number one thing to look at when choosing a grad school is how well the faculty support you. If school B’s faculty are supportive, then if you get in, they think you can succeed. Moreover, they will almost surely work like crazy to make sure it happens.
Not all schools work this way, sadly. I declined several funding offers in favor of a school that seemed wildly supportive of its students, and I’m glad I did.
But a good grad school, with supportive faculty, will work their butts off to make sure you can and do master the material. If they seem supportive, then don’t worry. Grad school looks scary from the end you’re on. Three years in, you’ll be trying to remember a time when you didn’t see the material in your dreams.
(I wish I was kidding about that last.)
A couple of years ago, I found the slides for my mother’s PhD defense.
They were actual, literal slides. For a slide projector.
I am so glad I will be defending in the 21st century.
I think the worst thing about thesising is the inability to turn off my brain.
I kept getting interrupted today and got absolutely nothing accomplished. This is really frustrating now that I’m on a deadline. Regardless, even though I was continually dragged away from work today, I was always thinking about my thesis. Always. When will I be able to hold a conversation or write a letter without mentioning it? (~_~;)
I should start Postcrossing again. My mailbox feels lonely. ((although I get new yarn in the mail tomorrow!!)) but postage increased again and now international stamps are over a dollar…
……I am totally turning into a cat lady… Even though I don’t own any pets. That takes skill. (｡-_-｡)
Hopefully I can get chapter 1 edited tomorrow! …even though it’s Easter… Graduate students don’t have holidays it seems…
We really don’t. I’m sitting here at 1:26am on Easter morning, trying to re-install LaTeX so I can get my advisor an updated version of my advancement document by Monday evening. Easter morning, rather than going to church, I’m going to continue practicing my advancement presentation with my (atheist) mother. Last week was my spring break, I think (or was it the week before? I’ve lost track), but I ended up working the whole time anyway.
Holidays? Pfft, yeah right.
D-Link’s router setup CD killed my computer.
I am ready to scream.
I am so stressed.
I just want things to WORK.
Also the backups will take at least three hours.
FML.
Trying to write stuff up the way my advisor wants. I am so not getting it. It’s 5am and I’m getting frustrated.
One of my professors described degrees this way. A liberal arts bachelor’s gives you just enough to be dangerous to yourself; and a master’s enough to be dangerous to others.
Doctorates, on the other hand, done right, should make you realize you are a precision tool to be wielded with caution, and just how many problems you aren’t suited to solve.
According to him.
I just realized my desk (I no longer have a cube) is no longer accessible to students! This means I can now be open about my academic life online without worrying about people showing up at my office.
So, if the anon from ages ago is still watching me…
Yes, I am a graduate student in the AMS department at UC Santa Cruz, in California (that’s the C in UC), USA. I am a fourth year grad student in statistics. My thesis is on Gaussian process models for transfer functions, and desperately needs a catchy title. I’m currently trying to decide if I want to apply for the graduation ceremonies this year, given that there’s about 50% probability I’ll still be here on my 30th birthday, which is in December.
We’re mostly Bayesian here; we jokingly uphold the tradition of the Bayesian/frequentist feuds. I have to admit that the longer I’ve been here, the less comfortable I’ve been with the assumptions of frequentism. We still teach it to our students, mostly because it’s a lot math-wise and partly because nobody has curricula (that I know of) for teaching Bayesian statistics without first teaching frequentist stats. It’s annoying as hell, but there you have it.
Not sure what else would be of interest about my academic life. It’s really not very exciting.
So much pain. All I did was eat and buy soap&grapes. Wah.
This has been a whine post. There’s cheese in the fridge, but you’ll have to get it yourself.
I don’t understand why this question is here, this is a history class, not a book analyzing class, and it’s also a very hard question, too many strange words that I had to look up just to figure out what it was asking.
I always take a kind of malicious glee in writing a big fat “+0” on answers like this. You’d think you’d at least try to BS the question!
Of course, I’m reminded of the time I had a student’s paper tell me that 90% of women were pregnant, but only 10% of pregnant people were women.
That one made me stop and blink really hard.
