Passion
Tell us about your mathematical journey! Some possible things you could talk about are the following (you do not have to answer all of these, nor are you limited to these questions):
- How did you come to love math? What draws you to math?
- What mathematical experiences have you enjoyed?
- What is a mathematical idea you find exciting and would love to share?
- Tell us about some mathematics that you’ve worked on and enjoyed.
All responses are welcome! This isn’t a test for coming up with something “impressive” or for you to try and figure out what math we’re “looking for” — we really want to hear about mathematics that you like and find interesting.) Coming to Ross is a 6-week endeavor. What makes you want to come to Ross and do math for 6 weeks? What do you hope to get out of Ross?
My enjoyment of math goes beyond problem solving, but I find it a sharp blade for solving problems. I don’t know when I first fell in love with math. I think it was a slow process of development. For example, when I was developing a game, the animation system required calculus and linear algebra, so I taught myself. Another example is when I was doing machine learning, I needed to use statistics, so I taught myself that as well.
Another interesting thing I did on the purely academic side was to organize a global math competition with my classmates this year. Students from more than 30 schools in more than 10 cities around the world were invited to participate. I was in charge of some of the propositions. I was able to adapt some interesting problems that I had recently encountered into the paper. I thought it would be fun to come up with questions that would allow the students to reflect the fun I was having.
For some other bits and pieces. I’m currently working on a mathematical modeling related scientific research under the supervision of my AP Statistics teacher. After I discovered the overcrowding in the school cafeteria (our school cafeteria is very small, with less than 100 seats but 120+ students per mealtime period), I attempted to use queuing theory to solve the crowding problem through some specialized methods.
Earlier in 2024 and 2023 I also attended some off-campus math courses about mostly USAMO oriented math competitions (I would have loved to participate in USAMO but couldn’t since I don’t attend school in the US or Canada)
For some knowledge that is not taught in school and not in the general education system, I would look for introductory videos on youtube first (e.g. for linear algebra I watched 3blues1brown’s videos), and then I would look for some relevant textbooks(e.g. for linear algebra I read “Linear Algebra and Data Processing published” published by Tsinghua University)
Community
At Ross, you will have to live with many different people, some who you may have much in common with, and some who may have different life experiences from your own. What should people know about you to share the same space as you, and for you to feel valued in a community? (This can include, but is not limited to: what should people know about the way you engage with and learn mathematics?) What will you commit to doing to help make the community one that welcomes your future community members?
The most important thing to remember about this is that I don’t study math for math itself. In other words, I’ve always considered math to be merely a tool (no disparagement intended). Many of the projects I mentioned earlier require the use of complex math. When I wanted to work on these projects, I naturally went on to study these related fields. Without realizing it, the learning is done. I think it would be great if I could meet some people who think like me. Learning math through exploration belongs to a very open and diversified learning approach. Of course, I’m also curious about how other people learn math
Collaboration
Collaborating and working together mathematically is an important aspect of Ross. Describe a project or otherwise that you have collaborated with others on (mathematical or otherwise). What norms, practices, and values made the collaboration effective? How will you practice collaboration at Ross to make Ross a welcoming learning environment for everyone?
I did many projects outside of school and honestly only being able to choose one made it very difficult for me because they were all excellent. If I had to choose one I think I’d choose to go ahead and present a math competition that my friends and I put together. This math competition was originally a SUMAC application that my friends had a lot of fun doing, and I learned a lot about Burnside’s Lemma in the last question. I was incredibly surprised because I had rarely done these types of problems before. So I adapted the question and combined it with some other questions that I found interesting into a set of papers. My friend then suggested if there could be a math competition so that more students could be exposed to it as well. And so PI Tournament was born. We took a reference from the HMMT competition and set 7 sets of questions. You can only get the next set of questions if you submit one set. Meanwhile the scores are displayed in real time, and the current score and ranking of each team is shown. Also we found sponsors. This was a real struggle, I’m afraid we wouldn’t have had the budget to organize it if we were just organizing it ourselves. The good thing is that it provided a lot of money and we were able to work out great prizes. Once again, we contacted a lot of people on the internet to try and get them to introduce the competition in their schools. In the end, the contest went very well and the number of participants far exceeded our expectations. Hundreds of people participated in the contest and many of them are eager to have another one soon. In addition to this, I was responsible for all the IT tasks for the contest, including building the website, updating the data, and posting the results. I also set up a forum for discussion between the students and other math enthusiasts. I think it was more than just a competition and the students got more than just a prize. It was more of a math exchange constructed to gather math enthusiasts from all over the world. I think it meant a lot to me, to the organizers, and to all the participants.
Background
Ross students often come from a myriad of personal backgrounds, with many rich and varied life experiences. How have your personal background and experiences have shaped your academic and/or mathematical journey?
Our school is not a top-tier-school in our city and has a high turnover rate of teachers. A lot of teachers leave after a year or even less than one year of being joined this school.
The teacher who taught me AP Calculus BC last year was a very kind and skilled person, but he left this school year. He brought a lot of math knowledge to me and was also my math competition starter. He has started a group for those who would like to participate in math competitions or have a great desire learning math (the group is independent from math club) since I have just joined this school (basically no one at my school chooses to major in math later in life, I’m one of the only ones) He usually talks about math competitions content like combinations, probability, number theory, etc. two or three times a week after school. He was incredibly supportive of me. Also I got involved in the math club (he is also the advisor of math club. In the math club he taught the competition content as well) and I gained a lot.
Since he left, the math atmosphere in our school is not as strong and I can only learn math competition staff by myself.
After that I taught myself math for a year and had a tough time getting USAMO participation this year. But I couldn’t participate because I don’t study in the US. That’s pretty much the end of my math competition story. I’m busy applying to colleges this fall, so I don’t have time to participate in math competitions.
Everything is much better now though, and I have many accomplishments in computers and physics, such as BPHO Gold, USACO Platinum, and HIMCM Honorable Mention. My story is not limited to math anymore. These backgrounds have given me a knack for computers as well. Game development, in particular, has now become my specialty. Apart from that website creation has also become familiar. I can develop and deploy a website in a very short period of time. My friends are amazed by my efficiency. Surprisingly, I realized that I have a talent for economics as well. I got individual bronze medals in both NEC and IEO, which I guess paved the way for my future dream of being a quantitative trader. Although this career still requires math skills.
Source
How did you hear about Ross?
I first learned about ROSS when I saw some people talking about it on Reddit. But that was a couple years ago, and at the time I hadn’t even gotten that far into it. I was then introduced to ROSS by my AP Calculus BC teacher, who was also my math competition initiator, and he said that if I could get to the level of qualifying to USAMO, I could try to apply. But even if I qualified to USAMO now, I think the ROSS application problem set are still quite difficult. It involves very deep knowledge of group theory and number theory. Luckily I learned a little bit of group theory along the way when I did the SUMAC problem set, otherwise it might have been even worse.
Activities
What activities do you engage in outside of classes?
Initiator/Master Planner/Programmer of the innovated 3D rhythm game <Domain Echoing>. Invited 30+ famous artists around the world to compose musics for the game. The game is released on Testflight and will be released on App Store/Google Play later this year. The level editor will also be open-sourced on github to help more rhythm game developers!
Co-founder of the <International Pi Thunder Tournament>. It has now been held once worldwide, and the next one is expected to be held in the fall of 2025. There are 100+ participants worldwide, totaling 30+ teams. Also reached out to Shanghai WLSA Academy for sponsorship. There is also a forum for contest extensions. (pitour.athmyx.com / blog.pitour.athmyx.com)
<Skin Talk> (Organization) (7 members) Head of IT. An organization aims to spread popular dermatology content. I'm responsible for all the online websites/online exhibition/photo walls/etc. (ctb.athmyx.com)
Co-founder of <Harmony Music Club> (33 members) (not within school), has released a collaborative album and will be releasing more in the future. Some of the tracks in the album will be used for <Domain Echoing>.
School AI Club <Artificial Existence> (22 members) President/Founder. We are currently working on a model that recognizes musical rhythms and creates patterns.
School FPV Drone Club (10 members) VP/co-founder, leading club members in the use of drone simulators as well as the use of real drones
School Band Club Vice President (9 people) (in charge of the composer department) teaches music composing.
Independent artists who has created a lot of music and released them on the NetEase cloud music platform.
Bilibili uploader with over 2.5 million plays and over 150,000 plays for the most popular video.
Member of the Activities Department of the Student Council at school + member of the yearbook production team.
Contributor of Artofproblemsolving, published more than 10 solutions, including problems of AMC/AIME/USAMO competitions.
I often try things I haven't tried instead of limiting myself to what I've already mastered. In other words, I like to get my hands dirty with things, especially content I'm not familiar with but is interesting
Future goals
What do you plan to major in at college? What are your career goals? Do you feel “driven” toward one type of work? (Like an academic career in math, astronomy, or economics? Or a career in finance? etc.) Or will you take a variety of courses in college and see what areas seem most interesting?
Although my interest is in game development, my dream is to work in a quantitative trading firm. Because I think trading is a cool job. I have tried trading cryptocurrencies myself at home and I find this analysis particularly interesting. I would definitely choose to major in math in college, and I think math majors have a wide range of careers in the future. If I get bored with one job I can easily switch to another. Other than that, I would also continue some of my current work. I will continue to maintain the forums for the PI Tournament and find ways to hand over the organization of this tournament to underclassmen. And I’ll continue to update Domain Echoing as a game, contacting more composers and collecting more great tracks.
Other Information
Is there anything else you’d like to tell us?
I’m a very efficient and disciplined person. For example, before I do something, I consider as many factors as possible to determine how much time and effort I’m going to spend on it, how much it will benefit me, and so on. Then I will do it as efficiently as possible. In addition to this, I am very quick to pick up new knowledge. I can learn the basics from scratch very quickly. These points combined I think are the core elements that have allowed me to do what I’ve accomplished today.