Admittedly, Loving Hut is a bit of a trek by Columbus standards. By car, it’s 20 minutes away. But it’s worth it!
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Highlights of Columbus
In this post, some students describe their favorite places in Columbus, enjoy!
Anna Seffernick (3rd Year PhD Biostatistics):
The Olentangy trail is great for biking, walking, and running, and has several entrances near campus. My friends and I like to meet for long runs here on the weekends. If you want to get off the pavement, there are also several metro parks within a short drive of campus. (Photo Credit: https://www.columbus.gov/recreationandparks/trails/Olentangy-Trail/)
Danaye Nixon (1st Year MS Statistics)
Eden Burger (by Akira Horiguchi)
Paulie Gee’s Pizzeria (By Akira Horiguchi)
Graduate Student Research Working Group
Vincent Geels (4th year PhD Statistics):
Having this regular meeting has been a great way to see how others manage their time and workload from week to week. I’ve been able to take away valuable ideas after each meeting that have helped me improve my productivity and strike a better balance between work and life. Finally, the social component of these meetings has been a welcome bonus as I transition out of coursework with fellow students to the research-focused phase of my PhD trajectory.
Akira Horiguchi (5th year PhD Statistics):
Once you stop taking classes and start your research full-time, it’s easy to silo yourself and get stuck in the same productivity loop. These meetings help me figure out concrete steps toward becoming a more productive researcher, which I can take with me once I’m out of graduate school and am truly on my own.
Nate Onnen (5th year PhD Statistics):
One of the best things about the working group for me was realizing that I was not alone. A lot of the time when you get into your personal research, it is so easy to think that you are the only person struggling. By hearing others talk about their research, you learn that it is just a messy process in general, and that we’re all going through the same stuff.
The Pets of the Department
In this post students from the program write about their pets. Enjoy viewing and reading about these adorable animals!
Joel Bracken (2nd year MS Statistics):
Han Fu (2nd year PhD Biostatistics):
This is Schrodinger. He was a stray cat and ran into our home ten days ago. He is so cute and sweet so we decided to accept him as a family member.
Vincent Geels (4th year PhD Statistics):
Zihan Lin & Xiaohan Guo (3rd year PhD Biostatistics):
Cookie is a three-year-old boy, and we adopted him from the Cat Welfare Association at 2017 Christmas. I would say it’s very warm to have such a furry ball in our life, especially when you come home and find your cat is always waiting at the window. Although cat could be very naughty sometimes, Cookie does help us feel less stressful and have much more laughing. We really enjoy the company of Cookie, and he is already an important part of our life.
James Matuk (4th year PhD Statistics):
This is my wife and I’s mischievous cat Chloe. We adopted her around two years ago when she was just five months old. She was quite shy when we first got her, but has grown up to be very outgoing and loves to snuggle up with us.
Julia Mejia (2nd year MAS Statistics):
Penny is a 3-year-old Vizsla who loves to go on runs and chase squirrels!
Nate Onnen (5th year PhD Statistics):
Woodhouse Vegan Cafe + Space (by Akira Horiguchi)
Vegan ribz jazz festival (by Akira Horiguchi)
“Akira’s vegan adventures” is a blog series that chronicles experiences at vegan-friendly or vegan-exclusive food vendors. If the vegan scene in Columbus is popping, imagine how the general food scene is.
My friend Karen found this event on Facebook and asked if I wanted to go. This seemed like a perfect way to spend a sunny Saturday afternoon. To fit in with the expected hipster crowd there, neither Karen or I drove there; she biked and I took the bus (free if you’re an OSU student).
I walked through the back door of Savor Pint in Clintonville (one of Columbus’s many neighborhoods), and a wall of sizzling smells hit me. Various food vendors stood proud, each executing their own vision of what vegan BBQ should be.
Wanting to try a little bit of everything, I first bit into some seitan ribz and was amazed at the flavorful bbq sauce and the seitan’s chewy texture. I then had some mac and cheeze, where the cheeze sauce was on point. Karen and I tried some of each other’s food — it was all delicious.
By the time we finished catching up and eating round 1, we went back to the vendors and ordered some more food. My last item were these fish sliders (no alternative spellings here). They were fried to order and, with the tartar sauce, tasted like some of the best fried fish I’ve ever had.
By then I had to leave to catch a flight to Denver for JSM, but I’ll definitely be back the next time this event rolls around.
Graduate Student Summer Experiences
In this post, a few fifth year graduate students in statistics share their experiences at workshops & conferences over the summer and early fall, enjoy!
Akira Horiguchi (5th Year Stat Ph.D. Student):
SAMSI IMSM Workshop
Matthew Wascher (5th Year Stat Ph.D. Student):
STATMOS Workshop 2019
On September 13th– September 14th 2019, I attended a workshop hosted by STATMOS (Statistical Methods for Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences). The goal of this workshop was to “bring young researchers into the field of Spatial Statistics and develop collaborations”. During the two days of the workshop, we were lucky to have lectures given by esteemed professors and researchers in the field of spatial statistics: Christopher Wikle from the University of Missouri, Doug Nychka from the Colorado School of Mines, and Will Kleiber from the University of Colorado Boulder. They gave an overview of the state of spatio-temporal statistics today, with topics ranging from fitting basic spatio-temporal models, through using spectral analysis to evaluate the role of parameters in complex multivariate spatial structures. In the afternoons, we got to get our hands dirty with some real world data; we worked in small groups and got to see how other minds approach the same problems.
I personally enjoyed the location that we were in as well. I always find it refreshing to get out of Columbus every now and again to experience a new place. This workshop was held in Iowa City, Iowa, which is the home to the University of Iowa. This is a true college town, which featured a bunch of great bars and restaurants that I got to experience in my time there. Furthermore, I really enjoyed getting to meet some of my peers in the field. We all came from different institutions and were in different places in our research, which gave me a lot more perspective about the graduate experience as a whole.
In all, this was not a large conference, but I think that the impact that it had on my studies was quite enormous. I would encourage all graduate students to keep your eyes peeled for small conferences or workshops in your specific research fields. There is often money involved, and you might just get yourself a free trip. The experience of these conferences is often invaluable as well!
The hotel I got to stay at (free of charge!)
A neon sign from St. Burch’s Tavern: a great restaurant I got to eat at in Iowa City (thanks to that per diem!):
STAT Student Life in CBUS: Harry Potter Trivia Night (by Akira Horiguchi)
At last year’s Harry Potter trivia, we placed sixth out of roughly 20 teams. Many of the questions were simple enough, but some were so specific that even 50 read-throughs of the Harry Potter series (books 1-7) were not sufficient preparation.
This year, we sought trivia revenge as the rechristened team “Snitch, Please”.
The first half was smooth-sailing, but we hit some bumpy waters when we hit the half-time question (name 5 of the 7 departments in the Ministry of Magic). We tied for third place going into this question, but only managed to correctly get 3 departments. We dropped a few places as a result.
The second half went better than expected. After clutch answers from Caitlin and Akira, we climbed back to third place until the final question was announced and all answers were submitted.
Then came the moment of truth.
The announcer asked “Snitch, Please” and another team to answer a tiebreaker question. What did this mean? Were we tied for third place? Were we, dare we even consider it, tied for first?
We tried to push these thoughts aside when the tiebreaker question was announced, and focused on answering the question (how many chapters were in the Prisoner of Azkaban?).
The two team submitted their answers. We guessed 33. The other team guessed 32. There turned out to be 22 chapters in book three, which meant the other team won the tiebreaker.
It was then announced that the tiebreaker was indeed for first place, meaning team “Snitch, Please” placed second over 20+ teams.
Though we missed first place by a tiebreaker, we were happy to have placed in the top three and to have improved from last year.
But most of all, we were glad to live in a city (and a bar — shout out to Claddagh’s Irish Pub in German Village) that offers such niche entertainment and community.
Until next year,
“Snitch, Please”