Safe and Warm

“I’m addicted to psets.” — J

Fdcosθ

Work is fascinating because people can’t live without it but they don’t want to live with it either. I agree there is some sense of accomplishment or satisfaction that comes from completing tasks, but too much work can lead to stress.

Caltech is known for having hard classes with a lot of work, but my experience seems to be different from many others so far.

Collaboration or Conflagration?

Students often collaborate on problem sets together in groups of about 4-6 people. However, the groups always seem to work slower than the people that work alone, and the people in the groups would probably work faster if they worked alone too.

Here is what my roommate P has to say on the matter:

The best group size is three people, because with two people, they can get stuck in an argument. So, having a third person to act as a tiebreaker is beneficial.

I don’t agree much with this point because having a majority in math and science doesn’t make that side automatically right. I think the problem with two people is actually that when one person wins the argument the two people can be in a sort of echo chamber.

Having more people can lead to a pressure to include everyone in the discussion even though there might not be enough room for everyone to contribute.

There is also the issue of explaining an idea to people who need help in the group. With more people, it becomes hard to know whose idea to focus on. So, something that usually happens is that at least two people have different solution ideas and then someone who doesn’t know what to do can’t decide who to follow.

Group work is essential for some problems that an individual would get stuck on because more people equals more information.

For example, someone might have gone to a different recitation/office hours from the others, so there are many different places to jump off of. This makes singular ideas less likely to persist in an echo chamber.

Good Enough

As I learned in a previous post, often, good enough is better than perfect. Ideas always sink in better with examples.

For example, we have pass-fail for all courses in the first two terms (2/3 trimesters in the school year) at school.

However, students (including me) often have an urge to perfect their solutions even though it brings no benefit GPA-wise.

Part of that is likely social pressure, everyone else is doing it, so I should too.

Another part is probably the fear of missing out on potential growth as a problem-solver. This is a valid reason, but if it were the only reason, why not keep doing extra problems? It seems most people are only willing to go as far as it concerns their official score. I will give it 110%, but only on the homework seems somewhat hypocritical.

Hovse M.D.

During Discotech, I asked my hosts how much people from different houses interact with each other. They said that it depends, but I didn’t learn much other than that.

However, I’ve figured it out since rotation:

It actually does depend, because everyone’s actual personality will match more with people in certain houses. Also, friends from before rotation ended may end up in other houses, which means if someone isn’t in those houses, they will end up hanging out there more.

Personality doesn’t really change that much, and even if there is potential for changing into the personality of one’s house, it would happen after ~2 weeks max.

New Friends Pt. 4

I’ve written so many “New Friends” sections by now in my blogs, but I guess there’s always more to write.

Comrades O, V, and B are always together, and talking to them is always a good time (for me). We were at RD and “Umbrella” came on, when one of the workers noticed that we were jamming out, so they turned it up. There were some dudes near the exit and they just started laughing.

1000 Carly Rae Jepsons

When “Call Me Maybe” came on, they sang the line, “And all the other boys try to chase me,” more frequently than any non-chorus line.

It’s interesting because I don’t really think of that line at all when I think of the song. Everyone probably has lines that resonate more with their values or desires. I suppose the implication of their favorite line is that most girls like to be chased. Who could have known?!

So, I guess the takeaway is that girls really enjoy playing tag! Boys, make sure to invite them to zombie/infection tag!

The 1/3 Sisters

The athletic facilities are pretty decent, they have a lot of sports available, but I can’t seem to get any court reservations on the same day. I play badminton sometimes, but the birdies are pretty crap, and the three courts all have basketball hoops obstructing above. There are a lot of machines though, and I’m learning how they all work.

I played squash yesterday with my friend T, and we are playing doubles tomorrow, hopefully. We found there were no tennis courts available, so we just decided that we might as well play squash instead. I actually played squash once because my sister played and I went along. I think the sport is a bit too cheesy, by which I mean there are many dirty ways to beat your opponent. Also, it seems like it would be very easy to get hurt if playing with someone that is unaware. It is a lot of fun though.

Problem Solving

There are many problems that we face on a daily basis. There are a certain number of tedious but simple tasks. For example, converting a document with color into black and white.

There are many ways to solve this:

1. Print the document on a B/W printer and CamScanner it, convert to PDF.

2. Take a picture of the computer screen, upload to Instagram with a B/W filter, screenshot + print.

3. Print to PDF after Ctrl + P and choose black and white

Clearly, the third way is the best because it requires the least effort, but there are often many approaches to doing something, and it isn’t obvious which choice is the best before actually doing it.