WOMP 2008 Schedule

The following is the current schedule for WOMP 2008. For a more condensed version in PDF format, [this PDF is out of date].

You may find the following handout useful: "A Practical Guide to Life in Hyde Park and Beyond"
Answers to practical questions about living in the University neighborhood, written by Elizabeth Csima and edited by Travis Schedler, Rachel Epstein, and Anna Marie Bohmann.

CHANGES TO SCHEDULE AND ROOM: UPDATED 9/18
Morning sessions start at 10:00am and afternoon sessions begin at 1:00pm, unless otherwise noted.
Sessions in the first week will meet in Eckhart 203, while sessions in the second week will meet in Ryerson 358 (unless otherwise noted).

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Note: the Chicago World Music Festival occurs during WOMP, with free concerts in Millenium Park nightly from September 19–25.

Monday, Sept. 15:

• Morning (10:00am): Welcome and Tour of Hyde Park; meet in Eckhart 203 at 10:00am.
• Afternoon: Algebra I, Daniele Rosso and Mike Miller
  Linear algebra: fields, vector spaces, linear transformations, bilinear forms, dual spaces.
  Algebraic structures: groups, rings, ideals, modules, algebras, group rings, examples.

Tuesday, Sept. 16:

• Morning: Topology, Rina Foygel and Tam Nguyen Phan (notes)
Point-set topology. Topology and continuity (cf. convergence), compactness, connectedness,
subspace/quotient/product topologies, metric spaces. Spaces of maps, compact-open topology. Examples.
• Afternoon: Analysis I, Ariel Barton (notes) and Shawn Drenning (notes)
  Measure Theory. Motivation for Lebesgue integration. Lebesgue dominated convergence theorem.
  Function spaces (L^p spaces), different notions of convergence (pointwise, uniform, L^p, in measure).
  Random variables, expectation, and independence.
• Evening (8:00pm): Game night in the Barn; meet at 8:00pm in the Barn (big room on the 3rd floor where Eckhart meets Ryerson) for board and card games.

Wednesday, Sept. 17:

• Morning: Homological Algebra, Aaron Marcus (notes) and Alan Anders
  Motivation, tensor/symmetric/alternating algebras, complexes, homology/cohomology of complexes, exact sequences, group cohomology.
• Afternoon: Manifolds I, Spencer Dowdall and Ian Shipman
  Definition of smooth and topological manifolds. Examples. Calculus in R^n, change of variables.
  Partitions of unity. Inverse and implicit function theorems, tangent spaces, vector fields.
• Evening (6:00pm): Dinner at Medici (map)

Thursday, Sept. 18:

• Morning: Analysis II, Francis Chung and Yuan Shao
  Functional Analysis. Banach spaces, Hilbert spaces, topological vector spaces, strong/weak/weak^* convergence.
  Fourier series, Fourier transforms, Hahn-Banach theorem, spectral theorem.
• Afternoon (special time 1:00pm–3:00pm): Life in Chicago, a forum to learn about all Chicago has to offer, including a Q&A session.
• Evening (7:45pm): Bar Crawl on the North Side; meet at 7:45pm in the first-year office.
  You MUST have either a passport or a US state ID/driver's license, it must be valid (not expired), and it must say that you are at least 21 years old. You will also need a Chicago Card (preferred) or a lot of $1 bills to pay for buses.

Friday, Sept. 19:

• Morning: Algebra II, Avan Thiyagarajan and Vipul Naik
  Matrices: determinant/trace, Jordan Form, characteristic polynomials, semisimple and nilpotent decompositions.
  Group representations, characters. Lie algebras, derivations, Lie algebra of derivations, representations of Lie algebras.
• Afternoon (special time 2:00pm–4:00pm): Algebraic Topology, Khalid Bou-Rabee and Asaf Hadari
  Homotopies, fundamental group, covering spaces and universal cover, fundamental theorem of covering space theory,
  group actions, homology of spaces, examples.

Saturday, Sept. 20:

• Afternoon (1:00pm): Walk from the Loop to the Lincoln Park Zoo; meet at 1:00pm at the #6 bus stop at 55th and S. Hyde Park Blvd (map).
  Zoo admission is free; bring money for lunch and bus fare ($4.50 if you pay cash, or get a Chicago Card Plus already!).

Sunday, Sept. 21:

• Morning and Afternoon (9:00am–4:00pm): International Student Orientation (mandatory for international students).
  At International House, in the Assembly Hall; lunch is included. More information here.

Note: the Field Museum has free admission all this week (September 21–26).

Monday, Sept. 22 (Ryerson 358):

• Morning: Category Theory, John Lind and Nicolas Ojeda Bar
  Definitions, motiviation, and examples. Functors and natural transformations, products and coproducts. Direct limits and projective limits.
• Afternoon: Research talks: Bryce Johnson, Tomasz Zamojski, and Damir Dzhafarov.

Tuesday, Sept. 23 (Ryerson 358):

• Morning: Manifolds II, Tom Church and Grigori Avramidi
  Lie derivatives, tangent bundles, vector bundles, fiber bundles, Lie groups, examples.
• Afternoon (12:00pm–4:00pm): Graduate Student Orientation at Ida Noyes Hall: includes lunch, information sessions, and refreshments at the Pub.

Wednesday, Sept. 24 (Ryerson 358):

• Morning (10:30am–12:00pm): Department Orientation (expected to be in Ryerson 358)
• Noon (12:00pm): First Year Photos; meet at the steps in front of Eckhart
• Evening (8:00pm) Drinks with incoming CS students. Meet at the Pub, downstairs in Ida Noyes hall.

Thursday, Sept. 25 (Ryerson 358):

• Morning: Geometry research talks: Hanna Bennett, Ian Biringer, and Ian Shipman
• Afternoon (4:30pm) Trip to Art Institute of Chicago; meet at 4:30pm at the #6 bus stop at 55th and S. Hyde Park Blvd (map).
  Admission is free (but there is an exhibit on the photography of Henri Cartier-Bresson for $12); bring money for bus fare ($4.50 if you pay cash, or use your Chicago Card Plus).
• Evening (6:00pm): Free concert downtown in Millenium Park: Calexico with Salvador Duran and Mariachi Luz de Luna Zazhil

Friday, Sept. 26 (Ryerson 358):

• Morning: Research talks: Timur Akhunov (notes), Justin Noel, Nicolas Ojeda Bar
• Afternoon (special time 2:00pm–4:00pm): Forum on how to get through the first year program
• Evening (5:00): Department Picnic, outside behind Eckhart.

Saturday, Sept. 27:

• Afternoon (2:30): Walk downtown for dinner; meet in first-year office for a lakeside walk downtown to Giordano's Pizza.

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