Between grad school visits

It's basically down to two schools. Last week I flew up to the province of Ontario to visit the University of Waterloo and this week I'm headed off to Georgia Tech in Atlanta. I really liked Waterloo, and learned a lot about the Combinatorics & Optimization program there. The math department there is huge--Waterloo more than 5,300 math/computer science students including undergraduates and graduate students. And I could choose between a variety of subjects to focus my research on--probably cryptography, graph theory, or algebraic combinatorics. I talked to 6 professors individually and went to lunch with 2 grad students, and found everyone to be very nice and helpful.

The worst part of the trip was getting there--my initial flight from ONT, CA to Las Vegas was delayed and I missed my overnight-flight from there to Toronto, ON, Can. So they put me up in a hotel in Vegas and I flew to Phoenix in the morning, then on to Toronto around noon. I didn't arrive in Waterloo until about 11:30 PM, or over 12 hours later than planned…so I asked the airline to reshedule my return flight a day later, which they did, luckily.

The only bad thing about coming back a day late was that I missed a senior class trip to Disneyland on Friday. But though I did miss out on the happiest place on earth, I also signed up for a dinner-and-theater trip to L.A. on Friday sponsored by the HMC Alumni Association (I think.) The dinner was at the home of alum Robert dePietro '69, in Los Feliz, the area where many silent film stars and moguls lived during the golden era of cinema. This guy actually owns 3 houses in this area (plus a number in downtown L.A.) and he got to drive one of his Ferraris for a scene in the movie Fast and the Furious. The house (which dates from around 1918) has a great view of L.A., and the backyard has a pool complete with diving board, beautiful veranda with designs on the wall & ceiling, bronze statues, enormous palm trees, stone benches, and masses of colorful flowers. It was an amazing place to visit, and I keep kicking myself for forgetting my camera.

Anyway, about 8 students (including Heather and me), maybe 8 faculty & spouses, and around 15 alumni were there. The schedule went like this:
Wine & cheese and mingling in the backyard of dePietro's house
Dinner (catered by perhaps the HMC dining services--nothing that special, but nice)
After-dinner talk given by Prof. Groves (Humanities dept.) who spoke about Shakespeare and Romeo & Juliet
Drive to A Noise Within Theater in Glendale to watch Romeo & Juliet
After play, reception at the theater with the actors and more wine & cheese

The play was AWESOME--partly because of the theater, which fit a tiny audience of about 150-200, and felt very intimate. You could tell that this was a quality theater troupe--the actors were all suberb (many of them had film/TV credits) and the production was very energetic.

Some photos from my Canadian trip:


University of Waterloo campus

The large Math building

The Computer Science building, which I think was designed to look like a computer chip (inside & out)

On my way out, I had a couple hours to walk around Toronto--I found this restaurant in the eclectic Kensington Market (unfortunately, no time to try it out!)