(soft calm music)
- I'm Adrienne, and I'm
a master's student at
Oxford, studying Mathematical Modeling and
Scientific Computing.
(hip hop music)
- [Adrienne] I'm in Corpus
Christi College, which is where
we are right now.
Yeah, I've been doing lots
of fun things at Oxford, like
mountaineering club, football
team, which is actually the
soccer team, but yeah, there's
lots of fun things to do here
aside from the maths.
(hip hop music)
- So a typical day in the
life here, try to go for a run
in the morning, there are a
lot of really beautiful parks
around Oxford, so.
And actually, the weather here
is much better than people
will tell you, usually really sunny.
So then I usually have a couple
of hours of lecture for the
day, work on some math problems
with my course mates, no
day is complete without
at least two breaks for
tea and biscuits.
Then, generally come back to
Corpus for hall, sometimes we
have formal hall, or a friend
from another college will
invite me to their hall for
dinner, which is really fun.
And then generally, I try
to do something fun in the
evening, like, I go climbing
with friends or maybe go see a
film or a show, they have a
really great symphony here.
Lots of different types of
things to do, but no day is ever
boring, that's for sure.
(hip hop music)
- So, you are doing a master's program in
Mathematical Modeling
and Scientific Computing?
- Exactly.
- What does that mean?
- That's a great question.
So, it's a really project-based
course for people with
background in something like
math or engineering, physics,
that type of thing.
It involves modeling and
computing, so on the modeling side,
it's like taking a complicated
problem and windowing down
to the most important parts
and trying to get a feel
for how you would actually
be able to solve it.
And then on the computing
side, most of the time these
problems aren't actually
solvable analytically, so we have
to know how to use different
types of algorithms and
software and coding, we chose
to be able to actually find
the answers to these problems
that we're looking at.
- Amazing.
So it's a one-year program?
- Yeah.
- What structurally does
the program look like from
beginning to end?
- That's a great question, too.
So, it's three terms here at Oxford.
The first term is called
Michaelmas, second is Hilary,
and then Trinity.
So ours is a full 12 months,
so we go through all those
three terms, and then
the summer afterwards.
So the first term is almost
completely taught courses, so
like lecture courses then
you take exams at the end
of the break.
And the second term is like
that, a bit fewer courses, but
then more projects, hands-on
work with faculty, small
research projects, some group work.
And then over each break, between
those terms, we do our own
little mini projects on the
electives that we took the
previous semester, or the previous term.
And then at the ...
In the third term and the
summer, we work on our own
dissertations with a faculty
member, so that's like a four
or five month long mini thesis, basically.
- Great.
Do you know what you want to
do your dissertation about yet?
- Yeah, I actually just decided yesterday.
- Okay, congrats.
- So, it's a bit different than
in America where most of the
time you maybe work with a
faculty member to come up with
your own project, here they
actually presented us with the
project ideas, so we got a
big packet full of lots of
different topics.
A lot of them are super
interesting, tons of different types
of work, actually.
Everything from biologically
related problems, to super
mathy, just looking at the
methods themselves, a lot of
fluid dynamics, physics,
that type of thing.
Some things focused on networks.
But, so what I decided to do
is work on a model of the heart
and look at the two interfaced between the
electrochemistry and the
mechanics of the heart,
because it's not actually
that well understood how the
mechanics affect electrochemistry,
even though we do
understand well how electrochemistry
affects the mechanics.
(hip hop music)
- [Adrienne] This is the
Corpus Christi Chapel.
Every college has their own
chapel, but ours was actually
just awarded the prize for
the most beautifully adoring
chapel at Oxford.
(light hip hop)
- You're involved in mountaineering
club and football, is
that all centered around the
college, or is that sort of
Oxford more broadly?
- So, the football is centered
in the college, I'm in the
Corpus Pembroke women's football team.
We don't have enough women
for our own team, so we joined
with another college,
which is also pretty small.
So that's centered at Corpus.
We're actually in the semi-finals,
so in a couple of weeks
we'll hopefully make it to finals.
And that's super fun, I'd
never played soccer before.
- And so what's the commitment like with
mountaineering club?
- It's whatever you want it to be.
I go about once a week, usually
around Thursdays after I've
finished all of my math work for the week.
And usually we try to convince
a few of our math friends
to come, too.
But then every Wednesday,
there's a pub night.
Every Monday, they do more
bouldering, and then on
Thursdays it's more rope
climbing, top rope climbing.
(pop jazz music)
(calm music)
- So overall, how would you
sort of rate your experience
studying in the states
and then moving over to
study in the UK?
- I'm having a great experience with it.
I think that the way that
student life is here in
comparison to college in
America, it's a really good
transition almost into real life.
It's a bit more laid back
than I think college was, but
still so much to do, so many
different activities, so that's
been really, really great.
I don't think there was
such a huge culture shock or
anything, Britain's not
that different from America.
It is in many ways, but nothing
that's too much to handle.
It's really, really nice
meeting so many international
students, that's been one
of my favorite parts of it.
About 50% of the grad students
here are international, that
includes Americans, but.
So that's been great.
I mean, it's kind of difficult
to categorize what ...
If the differences that I'm
seeing are between undergrad
and graduate school, or
between studying in America and
studying in the UK.
So I mean, I'm not sure on
that level, but yeah, overall
it's been a really good transition.
- And overall, why did you choose Oxford?
- I really loved this
program, so I was looking for
something to do to help me
narrow down my interests a bit,
and I knew I really liked
math and I really like certain
areas of science to which I
could apply my math, but I
wasn't sure exactly what, and
I thought that this would be
a really good way to be able
to try out a few different
application areas before
applying for PHDs.
And yeah, that's what I found it to be.
It's a shame that applications
are in the winter, because I
still have so much left of
my course to experience.
- So you're sort of doing
double duty a little bit.
- Yeah, exactly.
And I also wanted to have an
experience abroad, because I
never studied abroad in college.
I've traveled quite a bit, but
I wanted to experience really
living in another country, so
those were the main reasons
I chose to come to Oxford.
- What advice would you give
to someone who's interested in
either applying to a master's
program like this, or
interested in studying in the UK?
- I would say just go for it.
I mean, why not?
I think that sometimes people
don't really consider the
possibility of going abroad
for grads school, but it's such
a great experience.
The life of a student is so
great anyway, and to have that
experience in another country,
is really awesome, so I just
recommend that.
(pop jazz music)
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