The week

I don't think math professors particularly enjoy teaching 18.01 or 18.02 (single and multivariable calculus). They're graduation requirements and essentially boring fundamentals for the rest of a math career. Our current professor for Multivariable, McKernan, is uninterested at best. After the first week of lectures, the freshmen of D Entry at MacGregor decided we would rather watch the videos they posted on youtube of previous years lectures, taught by Auroux. It's the same material, but delivered more relevantly and concisely. He has an awesome french accent and is much  more focused. And it's open to the public, if you have some free time, check it out.

We've had two tests so far, one in each physics and math. I got an 87 on physics and 95 on multi, it feels awesome to say that I got an A on a math test at MIT. I think the OCW lectures are working. 

Classes are really different here than in highschool. Everything is the student's responsibility. The psets are distributed over the internet and are turned in outside of class. It's your job to make sure you get everything done, to show up to classes, tests, recitations. There's no punishment for missing a lecture except that you missed the lecture. You missed the material covered and should make it up if you want to do well in the class. Of course, it's completely up to you. Taking advantage of this, I had a paper due at 3.30 and a calc recitation at two. I chose to spend the first half hour of my recitation proofing my paper and fixing mistakes. I think it was worth it, but I don't want to make it a habit. I'm lucky that I've already seen the MVC material already.


Overall I'm finally finding a rhythm in my weeks. Monday through Wednesday is rough, but I have free time on Thursdays and Fridays and even find time for naps! Mondays and Wednesdays start at 10 with biology and go until seven. I have class until five and practice until seven. On Mondays I head over to the library to work from nine to midnight. Tuesdays wouldn't be that rough - I have only two hours of class instead of five and half - except I have morning lifts at 7:30 after a late night at the library. Thursdays, like Tuesdays, only have two hours of class, and one of them is OCW 18.02, so it's whenever I want. My weekends alternate fun and work. I go out Friday nights, work all day Saturday and go out again after dinner. After my second night out, I pset hard again all day Sunday. So far, it's working.