Chronicles of a Mathematician (Part 2)
So ended my JC years…
Was awarded a PSC local scholarship since my SAT for the Verbal portion sucked real bad. Guess it was a blessing in disguise in the end. Went to NUS for first two years, with lots of advanced placement credits, and I was already doing in my second year some honours year modules (basically doing them with students 2 years ahead of me), and still scoring As. Or rather A+s. Getting an A was like a disaster already…
Then came the email then changed my life. It was basically a lunch invitation, advertising about this double degree programme with some french grandes ecoles. Since I didnt have lessons then, and a free lunch is always good, I turned up, found it exceptionally interesting, signed up, got accepted, then got accepted by one of the most prestigious French grandes ecoles Ecole Polytechnique after passing their entrance exam (an oral exam in math and physics).
Then came the humbling experience. The As stopped flowing like water. Got Bs, then a disastrous C in my first two years there. In fact, I only got As in Physics in my first two years there… The gulf in standard between the top French students and me was pretty wide. During the two years when I was cruising in NUS, they had gone through like 35 hours of Math per week, and also passing through the entrance exam. Only got used to it in my last semester there I guess. I got As in every single course I took that semester. But I took away from my stay there the confidence to go up to a whiteboard and present whatever my brain can conjure up to a problem I have never seen before hand.
Came back to NUS for a Masters (in collaboration with a professor in the University of Pierre and Marie Curie), and that was when I started teaching undergrad classes. Those somehow were a breeze and apparently I taught well too… got an Outstanding Teaching Assistant award for my efforts there. But I had real joy teaching the new batches of students who were preparing for the entrance exams in the French Grandes Ecoles. Am really glad that there are now more students being able to pass those exams in recent years.
During my uni years, I also managed to help train the SIMO team in 2002-2003, culminating in me being an observer for the IMO held in Japan 2003. Was real cool to go back to the IMO as an observer, after having been a contestant myself. Will try to go as a deputy leader in one of the coming years…
