The six weeks are going so fast, like a long dream in summer, we are now ending Ross Indiana for this year.
In general, Ross is out of my expectation. Even though I have been expecting the beginning of Ross since I got the acceptance letter, I am still shocked about how excited it is for me.
Before Ross, I was basically doing contest mathematics, focusing on AMC, AIME, USAMO problems but I usually doubt myself - I love math, do I? I have been thinking about this for more than a year, listing out reasons I was doing math on a google doc, writing up 2000 words with a short story format but still confused. I have no idea about the logical relationship between “I want to do math”, “I am good at math” and “I love math”. This feeling vanished after coming to Ross. I am interested in nearly every single topic we learned in Number Theory, dorm lecture and advanced lecture and want to attend all of them (even though I gave up some after I was getting so confused) and there is nothing to do with typical competitive mindset. Also, I consider sharing some of the (not so advanced) topics with my math club members after a new semester begins.
For me, the iconic part of Ross should be doing problem sets from 9pm to 2pm and then playing exploding kittens, mafia, among us, etc. Then wake up at 8:46, hurriedly running to Myers to take Number Theory lecture and livetexing Aaron’s shared notes with a few fellows that may delete your formula accidentally (I mean what?). After that, having Connor's daily 10:16-11:25 family meeting talking about thrilling topics like p-adic numbers, having lunch with random people and from 12:10-12:56 going over Elliptic Curves content and doing problem sets together with Akilan, running to Elliptic Curves and do problem sets from 2 to 5pm. This should be the best timetable I have ever experienced.
At first, I attended all the advanced courses but after 4 days, I found out I cannot catch up with others' pace on problem sets and dropped Ehrhart Theory and Quadratic Forms. However, I stuck with Elliptic Curves until the end, which is enjoyable and the professor is patient with my problem (sadly I missed the last one which is a pity because I was considering taking a nap from 12 but slept until it’s 5). I am extremely into Elliptic Curves, it is a topic in math that is related to number theory, abstract algebra and also geometry (at least a bit of it). In the second week of Ross, I also need to have an election for my math club and I was pleased to talk about proof of Legendre's Theory in Elliptic Curve.
For dorm lectures, I nearly attended all of them. I feel that the dorm lectures are really good and this should be a symbol in Ross. Having concise dorm lectures featured in different topics can arouse my interest in those topics and may explore more after Ross. Among all dorm lectures, my favorite ones are Infinite Galois Theory, Knot Theory (which is easy but a good introduction, I want to explore more), and Group Theory.
It is so nice being in Family 37, I like every member in my family. In general, we are friendly but also competitive. I always work with Jiya and Charles and another bunch of people in other families, forming a group and ranges in Room 002 and the third floor. Charles is helpful and harsh, but I take this as a challenge and a good way to improve my presentation skills. Jiya is friendly, thinking deeply of every single proof, making them rigorous. We always help each other by verifying whether our proofs are rigorous enough. Henry and Selina are generally not so outgoing, but they still provide good ideas when having family meetings. I feel really lucky having Connor as my counselor for Ross 2023, he has real enthusiasm for math. Compared to my high school math teacher, who mainly treats math as a tool to make a living, Connor seems to be more willing to discuss math, even if it's not related to number theory. He should be a flag for me to follow when I grow up and also make me have a consistent love for math. (I also want to share math at 2am, isn’t it just so cool?) He is always so excited when talking about interesting topics such as p-adic numbers during family meetings.
To conclude, this is probably the best 6 weeks in my life, to continue the happiness of doing sets in Ross, I am planning to finish the sets and plus sets after Ross. And I am also really looking forward to being a JC in 2024.