Unicast

This morning we spent an hour at the Center for American Progress where John Irons hosted a Q&A about the Center, think tanks and American policy. Dr. Irons was very witty and informative, and the girls were quite impressed that he had Peter Diamond as his advisor in graduate school.

CAP is apparently now the second-largest think tank with more than 100 staff. It would certainly be interesting to have that kind of intellectual firepower informing the policy debate in Denmark where economists, in particular, do relatively little in the way of public communication and bridging the gap between economic theory and concrete policy initiatives.

Posted by Guan Yang at 06:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The trip is progressing nicely. Yesterday we visited were on a tour of Columbia University and visited their Earth Institute. In the afternoon we were on a tour of the UN and met for more than an hour with an adviser at the Danish UN Mission.

Today we spent almost two hours discussing health and the pharmaceutical industry with Robert Waldon of Pfizer, their head of Corporate Affairs in EMEA.

Photos will be up later.

Posted by Guan Yang at 05:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The department that I study at, the University of Copenhagen Institute of Economics, has recently established a Finance Research Unit. This is great news because students have complained about lack of high-level finance courses for a while. People have been taking these courses at CBS or the Math-Econ program. And soon a Full Professor specializing in finance will be appointed.

Posted by Guan Yang at 07:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

If you are a student at the University of Copenhagen, vote for me for the Board of the University (Bestyrelsen). I'm on list P.

If you are a student at the Faculty of Social Sciences, vote for me for the Council of the Faculty (Samfundsvidenskabeligt Fakultetsråd). I'm on list P.

Posted by Guan Yang at 02:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I just managed to solve my first linear programming problem By Hand using the Simplex algorithm! Sure, it was a simple problem where the solution was at the 3rd corner, but it still amazes me sometimes that doing things manually still works in this age of computers.

Posted by Guan Yang at 05:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I started school Thursday. I'm taking the following courses this semester:

Theoretical Statistics Part 2
Microeconomics 2: Markets and Welfare
Macroeconomics 2: The Long Run
Economic History
Operations Research

It's a bit more than I'm supposed to, but if I pass everything I will have more time at the other end of the program.

Posted by Guan Yang at 06:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Just handed in my exam assignment in ‘Samfundsbeskrivelse,’ our two-semester course on Danish society. 10 pages on our public finances from 1992 on. Includes such obscurities as the spike in investments of publically owned companies in 1996, and why value added in the public sector (including publically owned companies and quasi-companies!) decreased in 1998.

Posted by Guan Yang at 11:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Jeff Miller's History of Mathematics lists earliest known uses of mathematical symbols and words.

Posted by Guan Yang at 04:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

David Romer's Rules: Don't clutter up your life with other activities; just write.

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What you see is a graph I made for a school assignment (click for popup). 110 data points. A lot of clutter. It correlates movements in the ratio of {consumption | government spending | investment | net exports} to GDP to GDP growth in Denmark from 1980 to 2002.

Posted by Guan Yang at 05:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I have now been at the University of Copenhagen. The Economics Department is pretty big — there are 45 permanent faculty and approx. 1,700 students; 243 began the program this year. We are organized into 8 groups of around 30 students. Teaching is a mixture of lectures and classes.

The people are generally nice but vary in age and background. A handful are fresh out of high school. Others are much older. My impression is that they come to the program with different motivations and ambitions. Some are typical politicos; others have chosen economics because it seemed less than the alternatives. I don't think there are a lot of people who study economics because they think it is fun, but I guess the love for the subject will come later. Statistically more than a third will not complete the course, but it is harder than one would think to identify who they are.

I have four courses this semester: Micro, Math, Business Economics and a social studies course. We will have macro and statistics next semester. The math progresses at a reasonable pace; after a month it is starting to go beyond what a learned in IB. The micro course is formal, but not yet mathematical (that will come in the second year); it is formal in the sense that we start to a large extent from first principles.

I sent an email to a recent graduate of the PhD program at MIT. In the admissions process they are looking for students who are not just “good students”; they want applicants who have genuine aptitude and love for research. They also want to see recommendations from people whom they trust. It will be challenging to demonstrate this in the relatively rigid structure of the BA.

Posted by Guan Yang at 08:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

I originally planned to go to London at the end of September to study at University College London. However, due to certain reservations about the course at UCL, I am revisiting that decision and may ultimately decide not to go to London. To hedge my bets I have started on the Economics course at University of Copenhagen.

Some of my reservations about the L100 course include:

• Fairly elementary Y1 math course, and no Y2 math.
• No Y2 or Y3 macro course, for things like the Ramsey and Diamond models.
• No Y3 micro course, for a more mathematical treatment.
• Most options in Y2 and Y3 are fluffy applied subjects.

L100 looks like it was designed to educate generalists who enter the labor market immediately after the BA. I am most likely going to stay in Copenhagen for the time being.

Posted by Guan Yang at 02:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This means that my place is finally confirmed.

Posted by Guan Yang at 11:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

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I got 39 points total, which means that I will go to University College London in September.

Posted by Guan Yang at 02:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The results from my IB Diploma will be available tomorrow at 14:30 UTC. Hopefully — sometimes the grades in individual subjects are delayed because the Grade Award Committee hasn't made a decision yet.

The main question will be whether I will fulfill the requirements for my offer from UCL, and if I don't meet it whether they will accept me anyway.

Posted by Guan Yang at 08:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Tomorrow at 9:00 is Danish A1 SL Paper 2, my last exam. It's also the last exam of the May 2002 session. In 45 days, on July 6, my results will be ready.

Posted by Guan Yang at 08:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

IBO is the organization that develops and examines the IB Diploma Programme, which I have been following over the past 2 years. The program is fabulous, but unfortunately the IBO's publication policy is less enlightened. Unlike the UK examination boards, the IBO does not publish any of its curriculum, past papers or markschemes on its website. Instead, teachers, students and schools are forced to buy expensive CD-ROM collections or even more expensive paper copies.

Teachers are supposed to provide past exam papers to students, but many don't.

One student, who is a Diploma candidate just like me, has been hosting papers (in PDF format) from 2000, 2001 and 2002 exam sessions at his website. A couple of days ago his headmaster and IB coordinator warned him that if he did not take down the site, he would not be allowed to take his Chemistry exam, and would thus fail the Diploma.

This draconian measure is ostensibly taken to protect the IBO's intellectual property rights. According to its latest financial report, publications make a net contribution of $446k to the rest of the IBO's budget. To protect these $446k, the IBO is willing to threaten students by excluding them from examinations knowing that they would fail the Diploma, even though its budget could easily absorb a complete loss of its publications revenue. In comparison, $446k represents 1.9% of the fees that schools pay to enter students for examinations.

Instead of charging excessively for its exam paper CD-ROMs, the IBO should make them freely available online, as the UK boards already do.

Posted by Guan Yang at 01:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (183)

Today was the last normal day of school. My first exam is next Friday.

Posted by Guan Yang at 01:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Vote here. Comment here.

Posted by Guan Yang at 08:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Just got my 'Unsuccessful' for both of my applications to LSE, which is very bad news. I still have offers from UCL and Warwick. Both prestigious institutions, but living in the outskirts of London or in a middle of a field at Coventry simply don't seem very enticing at the moment. (For my Danish readers: It's like Nordvest and RUC.)

Posted by Guan Yang at 07:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

LSE handles undergraduate applications very slowly. Very bigco. I applied in early October 2002 and now, 6 months later, I still have not received a reply. I have not even been placed on the waiting list which is the usual procedure. Tip: Usually it's a good idea to have applied to UK universities as early as possible, preferably no later than November, but if you are mainly interested in LSE there is really no point. Just drop it off at UCAS on January 15 and you'll be fine.

Posted by Guan Yang at 03:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

My mock exams are next week. I will have 3–4 hours of exams every day. We have had no time to revise, which is just beautiful. Right now I am writing up revision notes for Psychology, a subject that as a syllabus only takes up around 8 not very dense pages, but which involves dozens of concepts, theories and applications, each with relevant empirical studies.

Posted by Guan Yang at 02:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

My IOP in English is up for tomorrow, and as usual I haven't prepared at all (mostly because so much other work has piled up.) Instead of doing a presentation on The Great Gatsby and Waiting for Godot, the two books that are available for the IOP in our course, I decided to do something on some poems by Wordsworth and Coleridge. Namely an extract from The Prelude and one from Ancient Mariner. (I got this idea from some themes that were explained to me by the BE resident usability guru, but he is sadly unreachable at the moment.)

What I am attempting to demonstrate is the use of religious experiences and imagination in the two poems, and that Coleridge was the more religious type, while Wordsworth is more the nature touchy-feely type. Any ideas are welcome, preferably with quotations. :-)

Posted by Guan Yang at 08:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Richard Feynman's Lectures on Physics is probably the best introductory physics book, bar none. I have been reading the copy that I checked out from my local library, and the explanation is so much clearer than the book that we use in school. Feynman understands that physics is very easy when you know math (this is also where many pop-sci physics books go wrong). As Pythagoras said (well, kind-of), “Philosophy must be pursued in such a way that its inner secrets are reserved for learned men, trained in math.”

I guess my ultimate goal in learning physics is to understand all the stuff that's in SICM. Nothing more, nothing less. Guan != physicist.

(The Feynman Lectures are available on major P2P networks as scanned PDFs.)

Posted by Guan Yang at 04:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

MRes/PhD in Economics

This is an American-style PhD with entry immediately after an undergraduate degree. (Recall that MAs in economics are not available in top US schools.) The program is wholly taught the first year, involves writing a research article in the second year, and normal PhD work in the third and fourth years. Splendid idea, and a move that should make LSE much more competitive with US institutions: “The new admissions rules also recognize that we are increasingly competing for students in a global market. Like most departments in the United States, we will therefore make admissions offers to incoming PhD students by April 1.”

Posted by Guan Yang at 09:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I received the letter from King's today. I was drowned. This is disappointing, but now I'll just have to wait for decisions from LSE and Warwick. Perhaps applying to the most over-subscribed college in Cambridge was not such a good idea.

Posted by Guan Yang at 11:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Received my letter from King's today. I was pooled. “... However, we were impressed by your application and we think that some of our colleagues in other colleges may possibly be interested in it.”

Status: For those not in the know, I will probably not receive a phone call because the interviews are Saturday, even though the guidance notes say that I could technically be called up Friday. Offers without interviews are sent out no later than January 15, so if I haven't heard anything by January 18 (which is the day of my school prom) there's not a lot of hope.

Posted by Guan Yang at 12:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I got 1420 (710 in each section), which is the 95th percentile for math and 96th percentile for verbal. Not very satisfactory.

I thought I would need the SAT for a last-ditch effort at an American college application, but I have not yet been able to find a US undergraduate program that meets European standards. They're all four-year affairs where the first two years are just general education and proper specialization does not come before the third year. Also, I have not been able to find any schools that I like that will grant sophomore status on the basis of an IB diploma. Which means that I would actually have to be there for all four years.

The stories of smart British kids — 10 A* GCSEs smart — going to the US on a scholarship are a bit amazing, because as far as I can see there are no undergraduate programs there that match the standards of the best British universities. Unless she got very special treatment, like a full scholarship and completion of the BS in 2½ years.

Posted by Guan Yang at 11:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Download file

Posted by Guan Yang at 02:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

This is a draft of my extended essay. (Careful, around 1 meg.) Everyone is welcome to read it and post their comments.

Download file

Posted by Guan Yang at 03:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I have just received an offer from SOAS. They want 32 points on the IB.

Posted by Guan Yang at 12:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Wrote up some notes here.

Posted by Guan Yang at 07:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I just took the SAT I (Reasoning Test). It was not as hard as I had feared, easy 1600 as we say in the IB system. More realistically, probably 1450–1500.

Posted by Guan Yang at 01:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I have found a hilarious paper from 1973 called “Life Among the Econ”, which purports to be an anthropological study of the ‘Econ’ tribe whose most prestigious caste, the Math-Econs, “obey the ancient Pythagorean principle that ‘philosophy must be pursued in such a way that its inner secrets are reserved for learned men, trained in Math.’ ”

Axel Leijonhufvud: Life Among the Econ. Western Economic Journal 11, 327–337, September 1973. (Sorry about the skew PDF, the result of an annoying photocopier at the Royal Library. I have an OCR'ed cropped version that's better for screen reading.)

Posted by Guan Yang at 09:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

In this, this and this, the New York Times follows three Manhattan teenagers from different backgrounds who go through the admissions race at US colleges. One of them spent $350 on a CD to display his musical skills, which gave him an edge over other applicants. This is quite possibly how the UK will look in 20 years, at least for admissions of the Russell Group.

Posted by Guan Yang at 07:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

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My first offer has arrived, from UCL. It's for 39 points overall, 776 in higher level subjects and 6 in English.

Posted by Guan Yang at 07:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

For the umpteenth time, a posting about my application to Cambridge. My interview is scheduled for the morning of December 11, with Dr. Hamid Sabourian and Professor Robert Rowthorn. In F4 in the Gibbs building, which is a stone's throw away from H3, probably the most famous room at King's College right now.

Posted by Guan Yang at 09:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Something is happening in UK higher education these years. UCL and Imperial are merging, creating one of the largest universities in the world. Then the rector of Imperial proposes £10,500 tuition fees. And today Andrew Oswald (a Warwick economist who has often championed top-up fees) predicts that top universities will become private by 2011. Andrew Oswald believes that without top-up fees, Britain will have only second-rate universities. At the undergraduate level there will probably not be a mass exodus to the United States because no high-profile US colleges can guarantee qualified students an honours degree in 3 years, but he does have a point when he points out that students expect to be taught by professors who themselves had first class degrees, and British universities are having a hard time providing that.

Posted by Guan Yang at 08:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Looking at the SAT I specimen papers, I would really have to shoot myself if I don't get 800 points on the math section. They even allow calculators. I'm not so sure about the verbal section because I am unfamiliar with this type of exercises. Analogies don't look awfully hard, except that I couldn't define a lot of the words.

Posted by Guan Yang at 08:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I am looking for locations for my school's galla after-party on Saturday, January 18, 2003. There has to be room for at least 800 people, preferably 1000. In Copenhagen. Any ideas? Email me!

Posted by Guan Yang at 04:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Today a letter arrived from King's thanking me for my application and including yet another form. In effect they want a recap of what's in my personal statement, information on my school's teaching group sizes, and (as I read it) whether I have or will receive interview training.

Posted by Guan Yang at 11:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I log in to the UCAS applicant website several times a day to see if I have an offer. No luck so far.

Screenshot

Posted by Guan Yang at 02:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I received my AS2 letter from UCAS today! It was mailed the day after I sent the form, so the electronic thing was a big plus.

The website also works fine. It seems that I haven't received any offers yet.

Posted by Guan Yang at 02:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I sent the UCAS form today using their amazing Electronic Application System (apart from the fact that it crashes all the time.) The Cambridge form still goes off on paper. I spent a hectic afternoon in the counsellor's office finishing off things for the electronic applicants. It was total chaos. There were last-minute Oxbridge applicants, people were writing their personal statements, checking the directory for pre-med courses to fill up the choices, or calling teachers to get predictions changed at the 11th hour. But at least two UCAS forms were sent off electronically today, and a few more paper forms I believe. I left early, but I think everyone was done by 6 pm.

Only 12 from my class applied to Oxbridge or medicine, so there will probably be even more activity at the next deadline in the beginning of January. On a different note, a few of us will probably take the SAT I in November, just to see how that works.

Posted by Guan Yang at 08:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (15)

This guy on Slashdot took a 7-year BS in Physics, Botany and Computer Science. He is Asking Slashdot what to name his degree. I support the suggestion "BS in Physics, Botany and Computer Science".

In school last week, in economics class, one person told about someone he knew who worked in Frankfurt on astroeconomics: Predicting business cycles on the basis of the alignment of the stars.

Posted by Guan Yang at 07:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I've just finished my World Literature Assignment 1, which constitutes 20% of my grade in English. It started out pretty good, but deteriorated into endless drivel as I did not really have anything to say. I pulled the plug at 1327 words (out of a maximum of 1500 allowed). This is when I realised that perhaps I should have chosen the creative option instead of writing a formal essay.

On the other hand I am immensely satisfied with my UCAS personal statement. It is possibly the most information I have ever successfully crammed into 22 lines of prose. Right now it contains only very relevant information, but when I'm finished editing it there will not be a single superfluous or unnecessarily long word.

Read the World Lit 1

Posted by Guan Yang at 08:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Heather despairs at not being able to afford university. Despite its faults, I feel fortunate that I live in the EU, so that the UK government will pay for a world-class education with subsidised tuition, and the Danish government with generous grants and loans.

Posted by Guan Yang at 09:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

At school we had an intro party on August 23rd. We will have another one on September 20th, on October 25th, and again on January 18th. But in the first three months there is an average of one school party every month. Which is a lot. IMHO.

Posted by Guan Yang at 08:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

My final UCAS choices will be: Cambridge, LSE (x2), SOAS, UCL and Warwick. I yanked Edinburgh because I didn't want the hassle with the SAAS, the same reason I decided against putting Queen's Belfast on the form.

Posted by Guan Yang at 02:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The extended essay season has started today with a trip to the Business School Library here in Copenhagen. Next week we'll follow up with visits to the Library of the Statistical Bureau and the Political Science Institute Library.

The Business School had a WiFi network, but there was some kind of NoCatAuth-like security. Without public access. Which is weird, because there are network sockets available everywhere in the library for public use. It's a very nice library, much cooler and less humid than the Royal Library. The reading room isn't as big.

Such are the pleasures of living in a capital city, albeit a small one. All the major libraries in the country are only 30 minutes away.

Posted by Guan Yang at 04:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I've decided for King's. The "K" is already entered into my UCAS form.

Posted by Guan Yang at 08:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Tomorrow is the last day of school. Yay! Monday I'm off to England.

Schedule as follows:
25 June: Cambridge, arts open day
26 June: LSE open day
28 June: Balliol College, Oxford, open day

Posted by Guan Yang at 08:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Had economics exam Monday and physics exam yesterday. I did quite well on both, but there was a (verified) wrong question on the physics.

In other news, we have cable now. Wonderful. Watching Weakest Link on BBC Prime right now.

Posted by Guan Yang at 05:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Economics exam today. It went okay, but it hurts a bit to sit on your bottom for 4 hours straight, and handwriting isn't exactly good for the ... hands.

Of course after the exam I went to the library and studied (on my bottom) for 6 hours straight. My local library is this huge black monolith on the water. The reading room has uncomfortable chairs, but power and 100BaseT in every seat. I'm not sure if there's 802.11b, but I'm pretty sure that if I sit close to the windows I can reach United Spaces.

Posted by Guan Yang at 07:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I've started testing a new technique for studying, namely flash cards. No, I have not implanted a CompactFlash reader in my brain. Instead, I've purchased a deck of 12.5x7.5cm blank filing cards.

Some of them contain a question on one side and the answer on the reverse. Others just have a definition or explanation. This medium fits perfectly with a lot of the concepts that we learn. They can contain a summary of a psychology study, a physics formula and its explanation, or a small diagram from economics.

Posted by Guan Yang at 02:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Ananova - 10-year-old shoots herself dead after failing maths test

A 10-year-old Austrian girl shot herself through the heart with her father's gun, committing suicide because she had failed a school maths test.

Posted by Guan Yang at 05:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I am doing a math assignment right now, writing a Fortran program to estimate values of π. Fortran is actually a pretty cool language.

Posted by Guan Yang at 08:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I received the LSE prospectus yesterday. It's not online yet. The only change I could find is that the (albeit hypothetical) possibility of an IB candidate being accepted to BSc Economics with Mathematical Methods SL has been removed, and that the intake in degree has been halved to 97. This means that things are looking very bright indeed.

I am going to London in the last week of June to attend the Open Day there, and also at Queen Mary and St Catherine's, Cambridge.

Posted by Guan Yang at 06:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Elizabeth Shin was an MIT undergraduate student who killed herself. Philip Greenspun has commented on her death, blaming tuition fees and an irresponsible management.

This is particularly interesting because Philip has previously written a paper on whether suicide at MIT was a Poisson process.

Posted by Guan Yang at 03:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I got a letter yesterday saying that I have been accepted into Forskerspirer, the Danish Education Ministry's secondary research opportunities program. My project is on game theory, finite automata and applied microeconomics.

Posted by Guan Yang at 08:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This weekend I've been working on a physics assignment that we are doing for the IB Group 4 Project. It is a Python program that simulates the kinematics of a projectile. I'm using SciPy and Gnuplot; check out this plot of the kinetic energy of a projectile launched at an angle of .25 rad at the speed of 500 ms^-1, in a frictionless environment assuming the projectile is a point body.

I am working on extending this simple model with drag, lift and the effects of half a dozen other forces and moments that affect the flight of a projectile. Most significant are air friction and the Magnus moment.

We are also going to a lot of work testing the robustness of our numerical integration algorithms.

By the way, that plot is not an integrated function. It is a numerical step-by-step differentiation, done at steps of .001 s. It contains more than 25,000 actual data points.

Posted by Guan Yang at 06:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Exercise 3.6.23 Solution

Here is a solution for the problem I posted earlier.

Posted by Guan Yang at 07:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Exercise 3.6.23

This week my math teacher decided to spoil our weekend with this delicious problem.

Posted by Guan Yang at 05:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Oxford MP calls on Oxbridge to centralise admissions

Oxford and Cambridge universities should take student admissions out of the hands of their colleges in the wake of the bribery scandal at Pembroke college, Liberal Democrat MP Evan Harris said today. ... Two fellows at Pembroke who agreed to create an additional place in return for a £300,000 donation from a newspaper reporter posing as a banker have resigned.

I thought that admissions were already pretty centralised at Cambridge. For those who don't know, Oxford and Cambridge admissions are run in a track separate from UCAS; there is a separate admissions form, a deadline that is 3 months earlier than the general UCAS one, and a round of interviews in December. And you cannot apply for both universities in the same year.

Interestingly, one of my friend's entire family studied at Pembroke College, Oxford.

Posted by Guan Yang at 07:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)