Just as last time, I decided to write this prologue on the way back home, when Ross' memories started flashing back, mentally attacking me. Today is also my 17-year-old birthday, writing the prologue today I also marked down a milestone in my life. At the same time writing the reflection, giving response to the prologue, I opened my application for JC to give myself a reference of how I am supposed to perform from my personal aim.
Compared to other Ross campers, I definitely have a less intense math family background — an architect dad and an accountant mom, also a dealer of family business, instead of “software engineer couple”. Gratefully due to this, I may have the chance to gap my parents in math (or maybe not — my dad used to be an ultimate sweat in physics, and mom is just good at every subject so she does not even have a preference). Though I did make USAMO in my sophomore year, I neither had the chance to make it to CMO considering its difficulty nor MOP as I cannot even attend USAMO. I don't study in a school with a strong math base like Proof School. Still, I consider math as the main theme of my life, and I would like to pursue it for the rest of my life by taking a math major and a math-related career in the future. Ever since I learned how to count, I gradually learned the way to communicate using math. It serves as a unique and complete language, just like every other language in the world, connecting every math enthusiast, every curious soul, and every interesting individual with a deep-thinking mind together to communicate, collaborate, and share thoughts. Ross Mathematics Program is a strong catalyst of such reaction between each individual interested in math, and I learned a lot from the two years, gradually transferring myself from a pure comp kid to a semi-mature future mathematician.
This year's experience is different from last year. Though we had the same number theory lectures, Dr. Pollack and Dr. All had different teaching styles and plans. In general, Dr. All focused on the problem sets more and gave more hints. On multiple occasions, Amelia and I smiled at each other because Dr. All was talking about some problems that we discussed a few days ago. Also, because we JCs are far ahead of first years on sets, the lectures gave us a clearer understanding and helped us extend our thoughts on the problems. Also this year we have Dr. Dan Shapiro visiting us. On the first night we were afraid and also curious about the old famous mathematician for how harsh he is on students (rumors include he banned frisbee for the whole week when he was visiting in 2022 and he yelled at two campers playing foosball and they cried). But my impression of him changed when he came to us on the second-floor lobby when we were grading sets, talking to us, and sharing his favorite construction to prove the lattice pentagon does not exist in any space without using numerical tools.
Considering the advanced courses I have taken, I am mainly interested in unreal analysis, functional analysis (Galerkin method), image compression, and translation surface, and put more of my efforts into these courses than machine learning and Lean. Among them, the most challenging ones are unreal analysis and functional analysis. I really enjoyed them though. As always, Dr. Pollack gave absolutely very clear, intuitive, wonderful lectures. Even though I sometimes cannot put much effort into p-adic problem sets because I also need to do the number theory problem sets, I can still understand most of the lectures. I am planning to review the p-adic analysis course notes and problem sets after Ross, and hopefully improve. I also attended the dorm lectures, including the topology one by Darren based on set theory, Nawaz's One Ring to Rule Them All, Lam's hyperbolic geometry, etc. As a former Connor's family member, I am so glad that this year we also have Galois Theory for the math-to-die dorm lecture. Again proudly I survived (though I napped through Phoebe's part). I still consist on the idea that this year the Galois Theory lecture is harder to follow compared to last year, though Amelia argued that we went over the prerequisite for 3 hours and should be easier to follow. The thing is, this year we threw too many concepts right after the Galois extension was introduced which caused the confusion. Last year, even though we didn't go over the very basic theory, the Galois extension was introduced at about the first hour, and the intensive part came later after 2 hours of getting used to the concept. Other than the math-related dorm lectures, I also enjoyed the new fun What Is…? Lectures held by counselors, really appreciate Sheldon's iconic sharing on Five Night at Freddy's!
This year I was supposed to be the JC of family 79, but I am really glad with the choice that Sheldon switched the first years with Jacob, so that I am able to meet the 4 interesting first years, Akhil, Neil, Jenny, and Lucia. In the first week, I observed some first-years disrupt Sheldon's talking or do random stuff instead and I was actually worried about whether my family is going to do as good a job as last year or not. However, pretty out of my expectations, family 43 gradually became the best family in Ross. Everyone became helpful and involved in family meetings. We call Akhil a “D1 yapper” because he is really good at yapping, helping in motivating the first years. Neil is the one who probably knows number theory the most among all first years, providing thoughts and also dealing with the final proof, cracking the hardest part. Jenny always works with Akhil on the problems during family meetings. Besides ordinary family meetings, her performance in logical and set theory exercises really impressed me (the exercise gave out a few examples of statements A, B, C true or false, at the same time providing the result of the final statement which is unknown true or false to then find out the logical expression from A, B, C to the final statement). She's always the first one to guess the correct logical expression. Number theory seems to be a brand new topic for Lucia and we worried about her not catching up, understanding little content, and not enjoying herself. Thanks to Izzy, after their conversation Lucia improved a lot and I really hope she enjoyed the camp.
It is really a pleasure having my last year's JC Sheldon return as my counselor. He takes an integral role in both my Ross '23 and '24. The advantage of having a young counselor is that we can become really close friends. In the last few days, Amelia, Iris, Jocelyn, Sheldon and I played DDLC together and we named the main character “DrTan” for fun. Though he's still a college freshman, Sheldon can take the responsibility of a family and is a reliable counselor, very rigorous in grading. I am also thankful to Sheldon for giving Amelia and me sets to grade, I got improved in reading first-year' proofs. Also, we helped Sheldon check one celebration by the first years. The experiences made me be more clear of what we need to do as a counselor. It is for sure a challenge for a rising college freshman to do the job as mature mathematicians in their PhDs, but Sheldon managed it well and successfully passed the challenge! I truly admire Sheldon for his bravery of taking the counselor position and the knowledge he has in math. He made our friend group (Amelia, Iris, Jocelyn, Sheldon, and me) complete and formed one of the major pieces of my wonderful Ross experience this year.
Another staff member I want to thank is Darren. I first met Darren on the first two days, he was sharing a very interesting puzzle with us. As a college rising senior, he is experienced in doing math, applying to college, and planning to take a job. I learned plenty of things from him. In math, when we were studying in the 2nd floor east study room, he went in and gave us hints on p-adic problem set problems. Also, he shared his story of setting up the Penn math contest and applying for SIG sponsorship. I really appreciate his willingness to share thoughts and ideas with us. One time when I was stressed out about college applications, he came in asking what I was doing and if there was anything he could help with. I joked about whether he could help me with my college applications and surprisingly he agreed with pleasure. As a Penn student and a future quant, there are so many things that I can learn from him and he's always there, willing to share things with me. With his incredible understanding of topology and its applications, fun puzzles, and willingness to help people, he truly enriched my knowledge.
Considering my self-improvement, this year I have done more things than last year in Ross. Last year I mainly focused on doing my problem sets instead of socializing. This year, I participated more in activities as I planned in the JC application “if I get into Ross as a JC” — including participating in Math Jeopardy (though we got it wrong guessing the number of paces for Darren to walk from Percopo to Myers 137 and lose all our points), playing foosball with family members, playing ping pong, badminton and tennis. I also contributed to holding the quiz bowl by calculating team scoring.
It is strange when I realize I am back in my regular life. When I got off the shuttle that brought me from IND to Olin, I felt like I had never left here. And perhaps that is half true, a piece of myself is left in Ross eternally, in Myers 137, in Percopo, in Union, in Olin, around Speed Lake and the chapel. My Ross experience is like $\mathbb{Z}^+$ while my whole life is $\mathbb{R}^+$ — real numbers fill out the gap between 1 and 2, but still, my Ross experience, if considered in the positive integer set, though not dense, is consecutive. And now I am back to the non-integer real part, and my two years as Ross student ends, but will I come back for my 3, 4, 5…?
Again, similar to what I said in my JC application and Prologue I, I thank the committee for allowing me to return to Ross. The two years of Ross should be considered the best consecutive 40+40 days in my exact 17 years of life. The experience of Ross has influenced me for the past year and will continue to everlastingly influence my entire life. Thinking of the 2 wonderful years of Ross, I will be back sooner or later, after applying to college or in my college freshman year (I am not sure whether I have the ability to skillfully handle first years as Rizzo, Rosa, and Sheldon) either as counselor or administrator to continue bringing campers with a wonderful summer.