I used to think that I was pretty good at maths, but now I feel dumb most of the times. I am taking a course in multivariable calculus that deals with abstract proofs, and I have a hard time doing the assignments. The biggest problem for me is that I don't really know my problem. I feel I understand the proofs, but when I am asked to prove other things based on those proofs, I get lost and takes me a long time to come up with proofs. I've tried talking to some of my friends and asked them for ways to improve my way of learning - but none have been effective so far. I've been working quite hard for some time now (when I realized that I wasn't smart enough, and had to work hard to learn maths) and things are slightly improving. But, I guess hard work combined with some good strategies might work better. Please spare some of your time, and give me a few suggestions about how I could do better. I'd be indebted to you forever!

Go to Nepal, and kill a few more people for breakfast. That's what you all do. What are you doing here talking math? You don't know even a derivative anyway. As for my ego, normally I am polite, but the Maoists morons bring the worst out of me.I can and will never be friends with them. They should rot in hell for the number of people they have killed in Nepal.

 

Exacty Pire....These morons should be sent to zoo .........This Bhrasta guy...whose real name begins with S and last name is shakya, I believe study in University of Philadelphia. I have seen his one sided comments in hamroblog.com endorsing Maoist voilence , justifying them as killing of Bhrasta people. He posts comments as Radical Democrats . Just go and read his comments, they are so disgusting.

I know this guy...a worthless Maoist,.. I mean how many Maoist supporters are there in America anyway? It is not hard to know who this guy is.:)

bhrastacongressi, i have no opinions regarding your political beliefs.

but you know when you go about proving pure math statements, or problems, you do not bring in something that actually comes out of the proof. i think velocity is a differentiation in itself. and also for a good proof you wouldn't want numbers flying around. gotta deal with symbols. i guess you might have taken math classes that focus on somehting else.. thanks for the help though!

I usually don't like to participate in these 'my-ego-so-big' version of 'yo-mama-so-fat' conversations but this one is too juicy to pass.

First, commando, yes writing proofs is very different than doing computational mathematics. Most people think they are good in Math because they can find answers to numerical problems. I thought that too, until I took a theoretical math class. I like to think of writing proofs as more closer to writing an argumentative essay. It's about being logical. Sometimes you might think you've proved something but it might be totally off.
Couple of things:
1. Know your basic proof techniques (i.e proof by contradiction, induction etc). Believe me they are used from the basic to some of the most advanced proofs.

2. You have to study other proofs in order to write ones on your own. See how your classmates write them. Ask your prof to help you reword or rewrite ones you think you've solved.

3. Remember that if you get stuck in the middle somewhere, sleep through the problem. Believe me when I say, I've had times when I got stuck in figuring out a proof and I would just stop. Then next day, it would just hit me, and walla. That means start your problem sets early!


Second, pire, you struck a chord there and I just had to bitch-slap back.
" I didn't want to waste my time writing code for
others, so moved to finance in which I learnt the maths including Ito
calculus, dynamic optimization, Game Theory, advance econometrics and
many more stuffs. While I took convex optimization class with
electrical engineering PhDs, I was ranked among top five in the class.
Compare the salary of PhDs in elec engineers/comp engineers, and those
of economics/finance, and you will see the difference. But more than
that, engineering only produces stupids like you (and perhaps Babu Ram

Bhattarai who claims he knows economics, eventhough he doesn't know jackshit."

I will dissect a sentence at a time. 'Many more stuffs?' Stuff is stuff. Why don't you take a language lesson before correcting someone else? So you think you are better than electrical engineers eh? Did you compare the salary of someone with a bachelors in EE vs. economics? Also, why is that all my engineer friends are employed and my econ friends had to go to grad school because they didn't get an offer?   And if you think salary is the only way to compare jobs, think again freakonomist. Did you take a look at cnnmoney's list of best jobs in America? Guess who got the number one spot? Oh Shit, it's Systems Engineers. How about that now?

Pire, let me quote your grandaddy as well. "It seems to me what our nation needs is more civil engineers and electrical engineers and fewer financial engineers." That was Paul Volcker on PBS.

Now if you had stopped at that, I would probably not be writing this tirade but then you had to go on and say that engineering produces stupids. Damn, why did you have to do that? That's asking for trouble. Engineering produces stupids? So you are calling the people who built the empire state building, the automobile, the airplane, the computer, the internet, and also the software that you fu(king economists use to churn out numbers, stupid? It's true as they say, economists will never agree on anything. All they do is fu(king babble, and piss off engineers. :)

FF

Fortunefaded:

Ouch, it hurt you, didn't it?

Agreed on "stuffs", but you know it is a minor mistake. Am not going to justify it! So, let me go ahead and enroll in a language class.

As for your econ friends going to grad school, economics is a field made for grad program. Some programs are made for associate degree , some for undergrad, and some for grad. Doctors in the states are employed only after the completion of their grad program (MD). Nurses in Nepal are employed after passing 13th class, and so on. All professions have to go through their due time. But if you have an economics degree in undergraduate, then if your degree is from a top school, you are still likely to make shitloads of money in top financial and consulting firms. (Btw, economics and finance are slightly different fields, particularly after specialization.)

40% of top 1% wage earners (tax filing basis) were related to finance field, according to a paper by this year's Bates Clark medal winner economist, Immanuel Saez and his coauthor (a brief copy can be found in internet, Striking it rich, but you have to read his detailed paper to see this.I think it came out in QJE.)

Personally, sure I went overboard when I said engineers are stupid, but that's how we see it from our profession. ke garne, it is ego problem. Like you agreed, you engineers write programs like horse, we use it. From your definition, a farmer who plants crops should be the highest profession. But does anybody give a fu(k? No. The reason why economists and finance guys dont' care too much about engineers is that they are substitutable and expendable--India and China producing a million each year. But nobody respects China (and even India) produced economists and grad schools in America has only limited opening in econ/finance programs. That's how we control the supply of people in our profession and keep the salary high:)[One reason why people has to study in USA in econ/finance is because of research papers.. most of the papers use American data, so understanding american system is a must.]

An Indian friend of mine, who was topper in his IIT and did okey in our university before being employed by our firm, is looking for some opening to join finance field. I don't need any proof about which job is more lucrative.In fact, most of the engineers in our field want to work in finance field, and not the other way around.

I will be the first one to admit, like justice Scalia once did about his own professional colleagues, that finance guys make money for doing nothing. No one can really predict anything. But as long as we do things reasonably well, either by luck or sometimes by the sheer strenght of mathematics, we are trusted and we get job. These are tough times for our profession, but hey, not many of us are actually fired..they are firing engineers first. Seriously, cost cutting re. Ouch.

Teso vae padna lekhna, mehanat garna nai kina paryo ra pire? Eso Jagga Dalali gare pani paisa ta kamai halinchha ni haina ra? kina office nai join garnu paryo? kathmandu ma jagga dalali garne manchhe sab bhanda seth chhan kyare!!!

You showed a typical corrupt Nepali mentality who want to earn million without any real work (just corruption). Can any thing move forward with corrupt mentality? If there are no hard working people like engineers or doctors or scientist, what the shit you will sell to keep your market robust and make the money.

I am not good in English. Please do not comment on english part.

yes, Sirjana, jagga dalali is not a bad thing. It is called Real Estate business, and it has traditinally been one of the most lucrative business. hamro nepaliko mentality kharab bhaera arule paisa kamaeko irshya gareko matra ho...

arulai corrupt mentality bhanna sajilo chha, but when someone says something along the line of 'all my friend got jobs after undergrad, but economics majors went to grad school' what is he asking for? Isn't he making the same comparison?

Everybody is necessary in this world. Farmers. Carpenters. Masons. Drivers. Pilots. And doctors are corrupt too. I was reading a report in a nepali newspaper about how doctors went to strike after a son of their chef got into medical school on staff quota. They were opposing it. At the end of the day, Srijana, it is the economists, the financiers and mathematicians who matter because they are the smartest people around, and they will always make money wherever they end up. Believe me. I have seen smart people too closely to say this with some confidence:)

Truth hurts, but hey, it is truth. Even in Nepal now, bank CEOs/managers/stockbrokers make the highest amount of money:)

touche, srijana!

Pire, either you didn't read my post completely or your freakonomist head was high on cocaine. I've heard your crowd's addiction with everything from drugs to sex and what not. That's what money does to you. I will quote again. "And if you think salary is the only way to compare jobs, think again freakonomist."

Alright, you want to compare finance to engineering? I quoted your grandaddy and you had nothing to say about that. I will let it slide, just like the market did after your financial engineering fiasco. You steal money from the average guy, your banks almost caused a depression and now you are bragging how much you earn? Btw, did you take a class in ethics at any point in your finance education?

"In fact, most of the engineers in our field want to work in finance field, and not the other way around."
Everyone knows they are doing it for the money. Engineers can easily switch from engineering to finance/economics. You should know that's why finance schools look for people from engineering/ applied sciences and math! I've met quite a few who've done that. But I've never met a finance major do any engineering work (or go to engineering grad school), no matter how bad they wanted to!


FF

FF,

continuing this 'ta ta ra ma ma', let me immediately admit that I am high on cocaine rightnow. :)

Why would any finance major want to go to engineering, btw?sakne ra nasakne bhanne kurai chhaina, have you ever heard of a doctor trying to go to nursing? :)

And Yes, I didn't take ethics class. All my classes were in assets pricing, econometrics, stochastic modelling and dynamic optimization. Ethics classes are for anthropology majors, no?

Anyway, Keep working hard, FF. Economy is still bad, and here is how lay off works in any firm: Clerks, engineers, undergrad econs, statisticians, mathematicians and finance PhDs. Seriously. Wall Street guys always say we will go elsewhere if we are not paid well. At least, you know it is not true. Where else will we go? World Bank, IMF, WHO? May be go back to taking some engineering class. (My minor in undergraduate was actually computer science and engineering. I can still handle some engineering class. In fact, industrial engineering seems to be more similar to finance these days)

Wallstreet whore just having a big mouth. Just coz u fu(k with 10 different guys, and make more money than average hardworking person, doesn't makes ur profession better than others. A whore is a whore.
So don't give  the shit about O'I make'this load, or in whore's case, I can take this load.
And most of the courses you mentioned are applied mathematics not pure econ or finance. Another funny thing is you are comparing PHDs with general engineering (undergrad), which is comparing Apples with Oranges. As far as I know, Engineers are one who kick ass in MBA and get good grad school in any major.  And obviously you can go to econ or finance anyday from engi background, but how many of you have seen doing the opposite? There are non and the reason is simple. Coz they can't.
So just like in Nepal, if you good to nothing, go to econ. If you are good than develop a solid understandings and analytical skills from engineering then you can go any field and kick ass.

As far as money goes, just like I said above, a whore is a whore, irrespective of how much he/she makes.

haha, Express, how funny.

Paisa kamaeko ris garchha, all you two-bit engineers got is "we can go to finance, but not the other way". Here is a shocking news for you guys: in my undergrad, the cutoff to get into finance undergraduate was 3.7 GPA, the highest among any major. And to get into grad school in finance is close to impossible. In my school, they took about five people in finance program, twenty in economics program, and hundreds in engineerings...

Yes, you can go to MBA, but you don't know the difference between finance PhD and MBAs, do you? And from our pov, MBA and engineering PhDs are about same. Both useless slaves that need to be driven hard to bring something useful out of them.

Since only a handful of Nepali are PhD economist or finance, and probably not many spend time in sajha, I already expected spiteful messages like yours (all lazy nepali are engineers--drinking beer, playing card with each other during the weekend, and assuming they know stuffs when they know nothing). Ani, I find timro gaali funny. Jhingako saraple dinga mardaina bhaneko suneko holaa.. And the courses I mentioned are applied math? Asset pricing? Sure , we take tons of math classes, that's why I have high opinion of the mathematicians, but even they need to learn econ to make themselves useful in finance. Top quant guys actually come from math and physics programs too.

Hope you got some good information. Most of you probably have to wake up early tomorrow morning and go to work...lage raho guys..

The discussion took a completely different turn - but nonetheless it is interesting. I guess we all have different aspirations for life - money might have some priorities - but as an undergrad planning to major in Math/Econ, I guess you'd have to compare the utility people receive from their professions to truly compare professions. Max Weber came up with this notion of vocation - where you're made for the job, and like the job (essentially it is not work for you, but rather a part of your life) - in his essay "politics as a vocation" and I pretty much feel the same. It is rather the amount of satisfaction that one gets from his work that truly measures the value of one's work, and this thing being ordinal, it might be better not to compare across occupations, just by the measure of money. Then again, we are all money-minded to a certain extent, so a better comparison might be made of the average salary across occupations. But then why should we care about average salaries if we want to be the best at what we do? (I guess everyone wants to excel). So I guess it essentially boils down to this - No profession is bad, when you're really good at it. And, if you do not excel, you have to look for other options. I hope I make some sense!

Commando,

I hope the discussion above doesn't give wrong impression to you. As an econ/math major, I am sure you have a bright future, but you will have to absolutely excel in real analysis. It is the basic building block for any economic analysis. Sure you can survive in your life by running some regression, but to be a big shot economist, you need to understand real analysis well, and it is nontrivial.

As for money, as someone said above, there are different ways of making money. I personally feel that it is not how much money you make, it is how you spend your earning that distinguishes you from others. I hope that one day I will be able to help others in Nepal. We come from a poor country, and it is not good for us to show off our wealth or spend it lavishly. The best person to seek inspiration from are therefore Mahabir Pun, Dr Sanduk Ruit, Dr Bhagawan Koirala, Madan Krishna, Haribansha,  Ganesh Man Singh et cetera. They truly want(ed) our people's life to be better. Dr Upendra Mahato is also a very good person who has constantly given back to our society, and I also admire him.

When it comes to personal progress, it is not where you are, but how far you have travelled to reach where you are that is important (kuni kasko quote ho kunni). There are several Nepali near where I live. Some of them have truly inspiring story: a son of farmer goes to an Ivy League, a man who is the first person to go to college in his whole village is an engineer and so on. I am sure it sounds corny when I write here, but it is not.

I was lucky all my life, for sure. I was exposed to real analysis earlier because of my family background. I am sure it is a hard subject, but there is no short cut. Long ago, the king asked Archimedes to teach him Geometry. And he wanted to learn everything in two days. That's when Archimedes said, "O king, you can win the state  in two days, perhaps, but you can't learn geometry in two days." I don't mean to belittle other fields again, but econ is very hard since it requires both math and stat profusively, math is even harder a subject, and patience and perseverance are the only instruments that can help you.

Best wishes.

Hey pire,

I did not see any economist in your inspiring Personalities . I see doctors, educator, artist and leader but no economist. Are economists just the cunning people who make money by cheating and not good for anything? Why could not you put some inspiring economists here in your list?  It seems to me that there are worthless people in your field...thats why you could not get a single name to pronounce.

And another thing,

To make money, it is not necessary to know your real analysis. From Girija to Sujata ( every other person in that field comes in between these two generation), they do not know what is real analysis and they control every other real analytical people like you, with money and power. It does not mean anything to me if some economist earn more than a doctor or an engineer. Mero gauko euta manchhe ko  200 Bigha Jagga Chha (I can say he is a billionire), he knows how to make land in his name by exploiting poor people ( he is good at math and calculation, probaly does not know real analysis but he knows real time analysis).Are you proud of these type of cunning economists who knows how to make money and nothing else?

 

 

 

Pire, you sound like you have a PhD in Finance. First of all, congratulations on your accomplishments. 

Commando:Thanks for the email. Please feel free to ask me any question whenever you need any advice.

Srijana and Santosh: My last note to Commando should amply demonstrate that I do have respect for all fields. Sure I said a lot of things in jest, and because I truly disliked the Maoist who was bragging about his knowledge. He had never taken any analysis, it was clear to me, and yet he was too eager to give the advice[and he is an engineer].

To be honest, from inside, I feel my field is superior--but that's the first reason why I chose my field the way I did. I am also sure that you feel good about your field because it is something you are emotionally attached to. It is also true that whenever I go to the gathering of Nepali engineers, I feel  sad--they always play card, and engage in shallow conversation about politics. Their shallow thinking is also reflected in their political thoughts: they are in general pessimistic about Nepal and condemn everybody as a corrupt person who is responsible for our country's downfall--but then offer no solution from their side either. Sorry , I may be generalizing too much, but that's the kind of people I have met so far. Their math is hardly worth mentioning, most of them don't know how to calculate the power of matrix, what diagonalization is. They think they have taken calculus and that's all the math there is (and yet they struggle with basic concepts such as Taylor approximation and its utility, or the properties of convex or concave functions). Some of these engineers were SLC toppers, they could have been great scientists, but they chose easier path. Such a waste of talent. But make no mistake about their ego. Sometimes, some of them even claim that they are the smartest person in their firm( An engineer claimed that he could go to MIT anytime for PhD!) testo manchheharu sanga kasari tarka garne?

Santosh, mostly computer scientists and some industrial engineers work with us. When I say 'under' that is wrong from authority point of view, but we ask them to do monte carlo analysis, or write code using our algorithm. But they are good at their work, and simultaneously, they are frustrated at their work also. We are friends, and I understand their problem.There seems to be a plateau for them once they make 150K. Sure they can go to MBA, but that is hardly a guarantee for success, and MBA seems to be a field where natives excel.

I also think people need to correct their misconception that finance guys don't produce stuffs. We produce new "markets", where people can trade different options and make future better for themselves. See, not everybody has to make transistor to say 'we produce'. But at the end of the day, economics is about 'efficient allocation of resources', and in the absence of such efficient allocation, nation's resources are not utlized properly and nation suffers from 'deadweight loss'. Doctors also don't produce, right? They just treat sick people:)

Let me stop here. Hope it will end 'tero field ramro ki mero field ramro' debate. Wish you all the best. I appreciate the kid, Commando, because he has shown true willngness to learn, and let's wish him a successful future in finance/economics/math. We need more Nepali economists/financiers. Knowing nitty gritty of finance has made jewish people the richest and most powerful in the world, as you all know.

Pire, thanks for the response. If your previous posts had the tone like the later one, I would have never posted a comment. From next time, I would appreciate if you didn't post anything in jest and take out your annoyance of a moron on a profession.

pire,

you might have some of these naive folks fooled here with your quaint jargon pulled out of your ass, but just like you have little respect for those lazy engineers, I have little respect for 'financial engineers' like you. If your memory is short-lived, wasn't it your kind that caused the recession that we are living in right now? You say you produce 'markets?' Is markets a euphemism for 'bubbles?'

You are are so full of shit it's not even funny. Wall street made you slaves so that big banks can make more money. Your kind complied, pulling out models very few people actually understand out of your ass and repackaging CDOs and toxic assets worth basically nothing into AAA securities. In other words, you got your PhD in figuring out how to trick naive investors into buying shit and you call that creating 'markets.' Ha.

You brag about what the cutoff GPA in finance is. You brag about low acceptance rate in finance PhD programs. Why don't you brag about how your CDOs crippled the world economy? Why don't you brag about how the taxpayers had to bail out your sorry Street ass so that people like you can live another day? Why don't you brag about how nobody outside wall street thinks you people should be getting the money that you get? People don't complain about anesthesiologist racking in 400K. People don't complain about top professors racking in 300K. Why? Because these people haven't caused a financial meltdown.

Even Greenspan admitted that your financial engineering is so out of whack that he doesn't understand the complexity of mathematics that went into your sub-prime mortgages. That is nothing to boast about.

Enough said. I will let you have the last word if you wish. Humor me!

FF 

You are so jealous, FF. roera, sarapera kehi hune wala chhaina, you know.

I am assuming you just came back from office? Lage raho..kharab time ko belaa who knows you will be next on firing line!

.
To my amusement - can someone get away without taking any ethical lessons (be it in anthropology, engineering or finance for that matter)?

This is a pretty good thread minus the "tirade". ;)

-Grace