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Candidate board 2021-2022 Thursday 22 April 2021 20:51
The 53rd board of Wiskundig Studiegenootschap Abacus has the pleasure to announce the candidate board for the 54th board. We expect them to be constituted as follows on the 7th of September:
Chairman & Officer Educational Affairs - Niels Apeldoorn
Secretary & Officer Internal Affairs - Thomas Kanger
Treasurer - Eline Peeters
Officer External Affairs - Margriet Eijken
General Adjunct - Ruben Hoeksma
Education Week Thursday 22 April 2021 16:01
During the 3rd quartile the Education Committee organised the Education Week. During this week many events took place, among which the Mathematical Lounge+, an activity together with the Ab-Actie, the Applied Mathematics Education Prize (AMEP) and a course on how to play Scopone Scietifico.
We hope you enjoyed the Education Week this year as well and hope to see you there next time!
Mathematical Lounge+
During the Mathematical Lounge+ we had a lovely joint talk by Pim van ‘t Hof en Daan Velthuis. Both of them had creative topics: Pim talked about origami and ways to cut patterns out of paper with only a single cut, while Daan discussed the mathematics behind sudoku’s. You can find the recording of the Mathematical Lounge+ on the youtube channel of Abacus.
Chess Variations
For this activity the Ab-Actie and Education Committee joined forces and gave a new look at chess with several different variations to play. Some were quite chaotic like ‘king on the hill’, whilst others just were mind boggling like ‘atomic’ or ‘quantum chess’. Over all it was a lot of fun to be a part of the pure chaos that ensued due to nobody knowing what was actually going on in the games. There was a great atmosphere and people really enjoyed being a part of it, even if they are not the greatest at regular chess.
AMEP
This year Gjerrit Meinsma, Nelly Litvak and Tracy Craig were nominated for the AMEP. All three of them gave a wonderful talk about the theme ‘Virtual Mathematics’. Eventually, Tracy Craig was crowned winner of this year’s AMEP by the students, but all three nominees ended up very close and really showed, even in that instance, just how wonderful teachers they are. The committee thanks them all three for participating and congratulates Tracy with her well deserved win.
The best three teachers of the decentral education prizes compete for the UTEA (University of Twente Education Award) on the 27th of May at 16:00 in Teams.
Scopone Scientifico
Last but not least, the Education Committee also included a course in the Education Week. Here you could learn how to play Scopone Scientifico, a typical Italian card game played in groups of 4, 2 against 2, which much like Taipan makes use of very peculiar cards.
Christmas dinner site Tuesday 6 April 2021 10:53
On Wednesday the 21st of April the online “Christmas” dinner of W.S.G. Abacus will take place. The enrolment closes this Sunday. You can find more information and enrol on the Christmas dinner site (click here).
In memoriam Brigit Geveling Monday 8 March 2021 14:29
We are very sad to inform you that Brigit Geveling has passed away on the night of 2 to 3 March. She was 63 years old.
Brigit taught mathematics for almost forty years. She was the General Adjunct of the 26th, 27th and 28th board of Abacus, and was active for Abacus for twenty-five years. Aside from organising various small-scaled activities, she also organised several activities during multiple lustra and she realised several well-received cultural evenings in collaboration with Abacus.
During her years as bachelor coordinator of the study programme, she was not only important for the students, but also for Abacus. Several times, she changed the timetables of the Bachelor programme at the request of board members, to make sure the students could attend sports days, symposia or other activities. Brigit was also the first person who was willing to think along and to assist when something had to be arranged.
In 2018 Brigit was awarded with the Brinksma Innovation Grant (BIG). She won this prize due to her work on ‘team-based learning’.
Brigit became an honorary member of Abacus in 2019 for all her tireless effort. That same year she also said goodbye to Applied Mathematics due to her illness. Another cultural evening was organised to thank Brigit for all her hard work.
Brigit’s friendly and helpful presence will be greatly missed.
Flowers from the Education Committee Monday 1 March 2021 13:02
After the second quartile, the Education Committee gave a bouquet of flowers to Hil Meijer. His lectures were among the best interactive and fun lectures according to his students. The work he puts in communication with his students is also greatly appreciated as well as the huge amount of contact hours he tried to plan to ensure students would have many possibilities to ask questions and be in contact with other students and himself. He improvised on the current situation to create hybrid lectures where his students could join both online and offline. During these lectures he kept interacting with all the students creating a great learning environment. When we came to deliver the bouquet, we were once again reminded of how warm a person Hil is by his hospitality. We were given the possibility to converse with him and could appreciate the affection with which he speaks of his students. Thank you very much for the hard work Hil, enjoy your flowers!
New on the Abacus website! Thursday 11 February 2021 11:14
Links for educational support
There is now a new page on the website under Education: Educational Support! Here you can find redirects to all sort of useful pages, from an overview of the master courses AM to the canvas page of the SACC about mental well being. So make sure to take a look.
Work prospects
Another new page under Education is Work Prospects. On this page, there are stories about alumni. These stories are about the daily life of alumni, and about how they got where they are. If you have a story you think should be added to this page, please mail it to board@abacus.utwente.nl
Recordings of information sessions on Abacloud
Last weeks, an information session about the master specializations of AM and the minor information lunch took place. The recordings of these sessions, including the individual recording of MDS, can now be found on the Abacloud -> Standard Documents -> Study Information 2021.
In memoriam Dr. Walter Kern Tuesday 9 February 2021 10:02
With pain in our heart we share the news that Dr. Walter Kern has passed away on January 29, 2021. We share the following message of the faculty
The news that our esteemed colleague Dr. W. (Walter) Kern passed away on January 29, 2021, has touched us deeply.
Walter, born in 1957 in Nürnberg, graduated in Erlangen and received his PhD in 1985 from the Universität zu Köln, was a Mathematician with heart and soul. As associate professor in the Discrete Mathematics and Mathematical Programming group, he worked for the UT since December 1988, more than 32 years.
Walter had impressive qualities as a researcher in discrete mathematics, optimization, game theory and operations research. His mathematical knowledge was broad and deep. He was known within the group as the `lexicon' - anyone who was unable to make progress in his research was happy to pay Walter a visit. He knew a way out immediately or was so intrigued that he managed to find a solution within a few days. Walter was also an excellent teacher, a great friend of classical lectures on the blackboard, and he has trained many generations of students with enormous patience.
Several of Walter's former students are now active as professors and share his good taste for the beauty of mathematics, and the most elegant argument. Walter was also active for many years on the faculty council of the EEMCS faculty.
In the summer of 2020, he was diagnosed with cancer -after some complaints. In his unique way, he still made jokes about it at the time. But what followed was an almost unbelievably rapid deterioration of his situation, with more and more surprises. Unfortunately in a negative sense. Even recently, he still had hope, but interspersed with the idea of the inevitable.
We are going to miss very much his advice in mathematical questions, but especially his calm demeanor, his modesty, his helpfulness, his fine humor, and his counterbalance to the delusion of the day.
Our feelings of sympathy go out to his partner Angela and two sons Anton and Julius, further family and loved ones.
A message on behalf of the Executive Board and the staff and students of the University of Twente,
Prof. Joost Kok, Dean Faculty EEMCS
Prof. Stephan van Gils, department chair of Applied Mathematics
Prof.dr. Marc Uetz, chair Discrete Mathematics and Mathematical Programming
The board,
Daan, Luuk, Daan, Jorn, Anouk and Clara
'Attentive listeners' of Abacus Friday 5 February 2021 11:47
We are happy to announce Abacus has two 'attentive listeners'! Do you need to get something of your chest, or would you like to talk to someone in confidence? You can then send Raymon or Mariya an email. They will introduce themselves shortly:
"Hello, my name is Raymon, I'm 21 years old, and am currently in my third year of Applied Mathematics. I grew up in Klazienaveen, a small town in the northeast of the Netherlands, where I lived for the first 19 years of my life, before moving to Hengelo to study at the University of Twente. My hobbies include playing guitar, reading, practicing karate, playing videogames and playing tabletop role-playing games with friends." You can contact him on: raymon@abacus.utwente.nl
"Hi there! My name is Mariya and at the moment I am entering my last year of study. In the past years I have enjoyed the student life a lot: I joined quite some committees and have done a board year at Abacus. During these years I have met tons of new people, who have helped me to grow as a person and to learn how to help others out. At the moment I’m less active in the student community, but I do fill up my spare time with friends, housemates and some casual activities like playing the guitar and crocheting." You can contact her on: mariya@abacus.utwente.nl
Note that they are not accredited counsellors, and that they are doing this on a voluntary base.
Work prospects on the site Friday 22 January 2021 11:21
As of today, 'Work prospects' is added on the site. You can find this by clicking 'Education'. On this page, there are stories about alumni. About what they do in their daily life, and about how they got where they are.
If you have a story you think should be added to this page, please mail it to board@abacus.utwente.nl
Flowers from the Education Committee Tuesday 17 November 2020 16:57
Last week, the Education committee has rewarded Nelly Litvak with a bouquet of flowers. She deserved this because of her hard work for the students and the effort that she put in her work.
Due to the current situation, the form in which lectures are given is very different and needs changing to fit the needs of students. Contact is also an issue, so hearing the opinions of students has become a lot more difficult. Nelly put a lot of time and effort during Module 1 in order to ensure the best possible support for first year students. She recorded interactive lectures for students to watch and learn through and ensured that a lot of material and possibilities to exercise were made available to students. This second one was done through quizzes, 3 problem sets, extra problems and practice exams. She in addition added a new feature to the course: tutor groups. Students were divided into 10 different tutor groups. These groups would meet once per week with an older year as tutor to discuss any issues the students might have, what they liked and disliked about the course and strategies on how to properly learn for the exam.
Nelly has tried to offer as much as she could to students and tried to give them a voice even in these times during which communication is not as direct and clear as we wish it were. She showed she cared about the students she teaches to and deserves, therefore, a token of appreciation for the passion she showed for what she does.
Thank you for your effort and hard work, Nelly. Keep it up!
