First impressions

With the first weeks of studying over, I think it makes sense to write down my first impressions of the best “one of the best” technical universities in the universe country.

Studying conditions are awesome. I knew about it before – living close by, I went here for extra classes before admission. Especially liking the new buildings, although there are some acoustics issues in one of them, making it hard to hear what the professors say. Our schedule was a positive surprise. I was concerned by how many say students sleep for 6 hours and suffer, but we got an adequate – and more importantly late – schedule. Perhaps because we’re mathematicians and not engineers – others seem to have it worse. So, stable 8 hours of sleep it is for me – beats school, that’s for sure. (and less homework as well…)

Student events are neat. Crosswords, movies, music – there is something for everyone. And that’s considering I am yet to join any of the student organisations. Trying to be far more active than in school, getting into all sorts of (good) things.

Still, I have a slight suspicion that I chose the “wrong” track in terms of my current speciality – I would describe myself as 80% programmer, 20% mathematician, so I obviously hoped for more coding. But alas, the first semester has a 2:1 class ratio with math winning, and programming is mostly concerned with algorithms :-). Though I think this is for the best – I came here for knowledge, not a diploma. If education consisted of learning programming languages and libraries, it would be easy, but pointless. So… have to study for linear algebra and analytical geometry exams…

p.s.: Scheme is very cool!