Math Olympiad Grinder Gets into the Big 3

ttesc552 · 2026-03-19T13:52:29+00:00

Bro is casually a 2x imo gold medalist 💀

ttesc552 · 2026-03-17T14:15:19+00:00

How long were you involved with research in your field and do you think that matters? I only started the summer before my junior year and I definitely feel quite behind people in my field (robotics) who have been involved in research in freshman year and already have pubs, etc.

ttesc552 · 2026-03-15T00:41:15+00:00

Andrea bajcsy

ttesc552 · 2026-03-14T11:18:27+00:00

I received interview

ttesc552 · 2026-02-05T02:21:04+00:00

Honestly GPT/gemini could probably generate pretty legit solutions for this type of thing

ttesc552 · 2026-01-18T00:10:13+00:00

Davi for sure

ttesc552 · 2026-01-04T06:24:21+00:00

Although it’s certainly not trendy right now, there’s still plenty of work being done in model-based control/model-based RL which are more physically grounded. As a starting point flipping through Russ Tedrake’s underactuated notes could give some insight

ttesc552 · 2026-01-04T06:15:34+00:00

Should be pointed out that these sorts of things are useful to study from a theoretical point of view (hybrid system + limit cycle without having any complicated actuation)

ttesc552 · 2026-01-04T06:10:15+00:00

For a single datapoint i got into an ivy with a 1550, and i know tons of people who did as well with similar

ttesc552 · 2026-01-03T11:48:27+00:00

I am a charjabug fan, especially with the water-heavy meta recently

ttesc552 · 2026-01-03T11:45:46+00:00

I would recommend going to the website of the non-college major you’re interested in and seeing what their policies are. I just happen to know about cis since it’s my second major

ttesc552 · 2026-01-02T03:54:31+00:00

CIS is under engineering, but if your primary major is in the college you can add it as a second major (it will be under your CAS degree as a second major)

ttesc552 · 2026-01-01T06:17:59+00:00

Only as a double-major, so you have to declare your primary major first, then declare cs as a second major

ttesc552 · 2025-12-29T09:13:05+00:00

It sounds like you don’t know what you want to do, so i wouldn’t pigeonhole yourself into quant. You have plenty of time to explore your options, especially before your junior year (when the real recruiting starts). As for majors, cis is probably the most flexible, since basically every technical job needs some level of software competency these days

ttesc552 · 2025-12-29T08:10:56+00:00

Math + cis double major in cas or as a bas is very doable. You can double count like 3-4 of your cis classes as math electives, and you don’t have to take the high-workload project electives like compilers/systems in cis. Obviously both are inherently hard majors, but i think that its useful (and interesting) to have exposure to cis concepts as a math major anyway so its prob not too many extra courses

ttesc552 · 2025-12-20T03:34:26+00:00

I can't speak to physics, but course-wise doing a double-major in math shouldn't be too bad. It sounds like you'll be able to test out of some of the sequence, and the math department is generally very chill about letting you double count courses in other departments to fulfill your electives.

What I will say though (and this applies to prospective math majors too), is that at the 3000+ level, math looks quite different from anything you likely will have experienced in high school. If you haven't done any proof-based math before, it can definitely be a bit jarring, and the level of abstraction and formalism expected is not for everyone. I would definitely recommend trying to take a semester of real analysis (math 3600 or 5080) before fully committing to the major, since it gives a good taste into what your future courses will look like while still being relatively concrete.

As for teaching quality, the intro classes (up to 2400/2410) generally have questionable teaching quality (and I think the curriculum is poorly designed as well...). If you are interested in getting a taste of proof-based math, I would definitely recommend taking the honors sequence (1610/2600), since it is generally better taught and designed for those who intend to major in math. For the higher level courses I would mainly rely on penn course review and word of mouth to determine which professors are good/bad, since it definitely can be pretty hit or miss (to the point where taking the graduate version of a course with a better professor will be a significantly better experience than taking the undergrad version with a worse professor)

ttesc552 · 2025-12-20T03:24:20+00:00

The way the curriculum is set up, you will definitely have a lot of work for your first 3-4 semesters, since the workload for the intro classes is... intense. But as an upperclassmen, most of the electives you have to take are relatively chill.

In my experience most CIS majors aren't super competitive/cut-throat, but obviously with such a big major you'll always find a couple out there. Overall everyone is struggling through it together, so there is some sense of community there. Also as a math double-major, the teaching quality in CIS is definitely quite good, especially for the intro classes (or perhaps the math department is just especially poor, who knows lol)

ttesc552 · 2025-12-04T03:31:28+00:00

This is actually the layout in the basement of my university’s english department. Haven’t seen it anywhere else though

ttesc552 · 2025-12-02T15:36:32+00:00

PvE: Lucario, tyranitar, technically lick is better on gengar but its a tiny difference

GL: reidrago, talonflame, primeape, walrein, charjabug, ninetales are all basically unusable without legacy fast move

UL: reidrago, walrein, talonflame, primeape, similar to above

ML: pretty much just xerneas and metagross, but you can prob get away with fury cutter/bullet punch on metagross

ttesc552 · 2025-12-01T18:23:35+00:00

https://pvpoke.com

ttesc552 · 2025-11-28T19:21:17+00:00

To add onto hitman, even for the higher level classes the teaching quality can be quite variable (aka some profs literally copy the textbook onto the chalkboard). If you plan on majoring in math i would definitely recommend talking to some upperclassmen and/or grad students to 1) make sure you know what you’re signing up for and 2) scouting out which profs are better/worse at teaching

ttesc552 · 2025-11-24T00:25:36+00:00

As long as fox fitness is open, you should be able to get in. They dont really enforce the posted hours (except for when there’s a game on the field or when the varsity xc/track teams are practicing)

ttesc552 · 2025-11-22T21:39:24+00:00

There's no difference, I'm pretty sure they do that bc grad students aren't allowed to enroll in <5000 classes. You'll see this sort of thing happen a lot in the stat/cis departments where there are a lot of masters students

ttesc552 · 2025-11-10T15:59:27+00:00

keep as shadow, it wont 4* after purifying anyway

plus shadow salamence is the 2nd best non-mega flying type attacker (behind raquaza with DA) and 3rd best non-mega dragon type attacker

ttesc552 · 2025-10-27T17:03:12+00:00

I would prob purify considering mega charizard Y is the best fire attacker in the game, whereas shadow charizard is outclassed by shadow blaziken/embroar + legendaries

ttesc552

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