frankdux

I usually shave twice a week and I still get students in my discussion sections flirting with me.

I'm the OP and I got my grades for the semester: A, A, B. Holy crap, am i relieved!!!

I know exactly what you mean. I was a math major as an undergrad, but i've been out of school for a few years, so it's been tough getting back into it. And one thing i noticed so far this semester is how professors really only present about 1/2 to 2/3rds of the material we are expected to know. the rest of the material needs to be learned on our own. This makes things really, really tough. I find i just don't have enough time in the day to do it all and I'm falling behind. To be perfectly honest, I'd like to know why it's done this way. I'd rather be on a trimester system with a longer school year and take everything at a more manageable pace where EVERYTHING is taught in class. Filling in the holes on my own doesn't always go as planned, especially when the only way i know if i've absorbed the "solo" material is whether or not I get destroyed on the exam.

I'm doing an MS in math as well. (I have another thread on this board about how I feel i'm not cutting it.) If i'm lucky i'll have one A and two B's. I already have the A, but the other classes i'm really not doing very well in at all. I'm basically praying for B's at this point. I dunno. I'll take it one semester at a time i suppose. Although I'm really not sure how I feel about even coming back after this school year if next semester gets me as stressed out as this first one has.

Finals week. I did get an A in one class already, but this is my only A and the teacher gave most students an A. In another class I completely bombed the final and I probably barely had a B going into it. My third final is in two days and I'm scared to death because the exam is intentionally noticeably harder than regular exams and I've got a solid B going into it, but I don't know if i can handle anything tougher and I feel like i'm going to blow it. Yeah, maybe I just have first year jitters, but in all honestly, I really don't like school. I hate having anxiety, I hate having to sacrifice all of my free time to study, and I hate not being able to have the time to hang out with any friends or have some hobbies or anything. I just don't feel like I'm in love with the subject matter for it to consume years of my life in this way. The only portion of this experience I've enjoyed is being a TA and this is because I have teaching experience and I enjoy teaching. Thankfully I already have one masters (in teaching), and if i can finish out the year with at least a 3.0, I should have the credentials to teach at a community college. This feels like a much better path for me to take and I think I'd be much happier if I took that route. Thoughts, comments, suggestions?

Gee, thanks.

...is it acceptable to ask them out? Assume the semester is over and the grades have been finalized and it's the start of the next semester already. I ask because I don't want my penis to get me kicked out of grad school.

anyone else feel overwhelmed with the amount of studying and work required in their program? i already did one masters in math education which was more or less a joke. no more than 4 hours of studying a week, max. now i gotta do at least 5 hours of studying a night. and even then i feel behind, so i end up sacrificing entire weekends to studying as well. how do i deal with this? and is anyone in a similar scenario? a part of me regrets getting myself into this mess. i have no free time for myself at all!

2 years isn't that long. i had a professor whom i had taken a class from more than 6 years ago write one of my LORs. i'd be more concerned about having forgotten material over the course of those 2 years. what have you been doing to keep up your math abilities? it's hard going into graduate courses in math after not firing those math neurons for a few years.

It really seems like it depends on the field, and the program, and sometimes it just boils down to your professors.

I'd suggest at least sticking around for the masters, and then transfer. And if you did that then perhaps you can enter directly into the PhD portion of that program you wish to transfer to without losing credits.

good notes. teaching is very much a performance. also, if it's your first year as a TA, then you should be doing the homework that they have to do as well. this will help tremendously in going over HW problems in class. and then save your HW notes so you can use them again next semester. i already have teaching experience but i was nervous for the first 10 minutes or so of my first discussion class this week, but then when i got into it i really started to enjoy it again. and by my 3rd class of the day, it was a breeze. it feels really satisfying to know you helped somebody understand something that they didn't quite get when the professor zipped through it.

I'd imagine an MA in applied math will definitely make up for not having an undergrad in math. some other schools with great applied math departments just a notch below MIT would be: Arizona Univ of Colorado Boulder UC Davis Maryland Western Ontario these are not 'safe bets' but would still be worth applying to if you maintain your 4.0 in your masters.

Can't you get federal student loans from america to attend CERTAIN international schools? You should call up the contact number on the FAFSA website to find out.

Are you sure you didn't mean to type $23,000? I didn't even know that amount of debt or loans was possible to obtain from an undergraduate degree! There's gotta be a story behind that. Maybe some doctors have a similar amount of debt after med school, but just for undergrad? That's really too much. 1. With that much debt I wouldn't do a graduate degree unless it was fully funded. 2. You really need to investigate what your career options will be after obtaining this degree and how much money you can realistically expect to make. You've sunk yourself into a pretty big hole already.