An Introduction

- What is your year in school and major? 
  I'm an 8 year senior and I'm not even a doctor. Instead I'm still an undergraduate studying Math Education.

-Which post-calculus math courses have you taken?
Foundation Mathematics (290), Elementary Linear Algebra (313), Multivariable Calculus (314), Ordinary Differential Equations (334), Theory of Analysis (341) Abstract Algebra (371)

-Why are you in this class?
So I can graduate and finally get out of school!!!! Oh yeah, and change the lives of the kids who I'm sure are dying to know what I know about number theory...

-Tell me about the math professor or teacher you have had who was the most and/or least effective. What did s/he do that worked so well/poorly?
Oh man, honestly it's hard to even tell them apart at this point. I don't feel like I've had any stellar math professors, but I did have an incredibly negative experience with one. For my Multivariable Calculus class I remember specifically that I worked my butt off that semester, studied any chance I got, did my homework and never missed a class period. I have never complained about any grading issue, and I don't even mind getting bad grades because it shows exactly what I need to improve on. However, on one test I studied particularly hard on I got a 0/30 points on a specific question because I copied 1 number down incorrectly at the very very very beginning of the problem. I did all of the steps correctly (it was a  3 part question that was 10 points for each part) and know that I knew what I was doing, I just happened to copy down "15" instead of "13" and got zeros on all 3 parts. I decided to talk to the professor (the first and only time I've ever done that in my 8 years here) to see if he could work with me since I thought zero points was a little extreme. He wouldn't even agree to set an appointment with me. He just looked at the test and said, "You got the answer wrong, and there's nothing I can do about it." That really ticked me off and I stopped caring the rest of the semester. Luckily I did well enough for the first half of the semester that my sour attitude didn't completely kill my grade by the end. Anyway, I felt the teacher didn't acknowledge my general efforts and didn't care about me as a person and that was poor teaching to me.

-Write something interesting about yourself
I'm not much of a reader, and I've always been a terrible writer (hence the math). However, over the last several years I have been pretty interested in zombies. Anyway, after an appendectomy last year, a zombie story popped into my head and I couldn't seem to shake it. So, I started writing a book. Well, the book turned into a trilogy, I finished writing the second one a couple of months ago, and I'm currently trying to outline the third one. Now I love writing and am excited to see if I can ever get anything published, even if I just do it as a self-publisher on Amazon.com or something... Anyway, if you're at all interested in zombies, let me know. Maybe I'll let you read a copy. The series is called Living Dead, and it's a mix of Lost (My favorite TV show) and The Walking Dead. It's a zombie survival story told with a broken timeline. Each book is focused on one specific character and chronicles their choices during the great zombie war. So, because each book bounces around in time, one scene is told in one book, and retold from a different point of view in another book. I think that's kind of fun.

-If you are unable to come to my scheduled office hours, what times would work for you?
I don't remember when your office hours are... but anytime after class.

P.S. I admit that, with a few exceptions, I just copied most of these questions/answers from my Abstract algebra blog.... I hope that isn't awkward. If any questions/answers have changed since last semester, I did change them here...