First Day of Class

Well today I met with Dr. Kimble, my research advisor and met his secretary as well. She is in the process of setting me up with an office (yay!) and a computer. She put me in a temporary office with another student, but she's going to try to get me my own private one. The one I'm in now is pretty fabulous though, it has a window overlooking the library stacks. Also, Dr. Kimble is going to get one of the computers from the lab moved into my office for me, how cool is that!? I have also dropped one of my Math classes in favor of a different one. Dr. Kimble, though retired, is teaching one class this semester, on wavelets, so I'm taking that one instead of the Mathematical Methods in Physics. He said that would be a tough one to take the same semester as Applied Vector Calculus, and I'm all for going slow and easy as long as they're paying to keep me here. Incidentally, the App. Vector Calc. this morning went very well. I was the only math major in there, but the material seemed tremendously easy. I'm sure it'll get tougher as the semester goes on, but I have an advantage in that I've had essentially 6 semesters of calculus whereas the requirement for an engineer is only 3. My Inviscid Flow class was somewhat different. It's an engineering class and I've never had an engineering class before. I really like the professor, Dr. Vakili, he seems really nice and eager to help us learn. He said I'll probably have to do some background work to catch up to the rest of the class as I've never had Thermodynamics or Fluid Dynamics. He said during class that we should talk to him if we were overwhelmed and thinking of dropping the class, but he specifically said I'm not allowed to drop because he has a daughter who's a math major and he wants to prove to her that math can be an avenue to engineering. He's cool guy, and I really think I'm going to enjoy the class. Anyway, that's all for now, gotta go study -

P.S. Just to make some of you jealous - gas is $2.48 today at the gas station at the end of my road...

My first entry!

Hello all! Well yesterday was orientation for UTSI and it was great. Everyone was so nice! We even got this little scavenger hunt thing to do. They call it "in process" and you have to get a signature from a member of each department, ie. human resources, all the deans, safety officer, library... It's a great idea, and I basically know all the staff and faculty now!
Today I had a meeting with the Dean of Academic Affairs to find out what I'll be doing for my assistantship. I found out I'll be working with Dr. Kimble (somewhat retired, but still doing research) at least at first. He has a project on the applications of wavelets that he's doing with AEDC (Arnold Engineering Development Center - the base right next door to the school) so that sounds interesting. I don't know exactly what the applications of wavelets are, or exactly what is meant by "wavelet", but Dr. Reddy (the Dean) said that the first few weeks, and sometimes months of an assistantship is reading and studying in preparation of a project. That's good, I'm glad I'm not thrown in expecting to know everything right away.
Tomorrow is the first day of class. I've got Applied Vector Calculus first, then Mathematical Methods in Physics and then Inviscid Flow. The first two classes are with the same teacher, the only full-time teaching Math professor there is, so it will be good to meet him! I start bright and early at 9:15 but I have to meet with Dr. Kimble before that to talk to him about my assitantship, so wish me luck!!