Finneas Carver

As a mathematics PhD student, part of your contract includes acting as a Teaching Assistant for students, both as directly assigned cases (including those described as “lost causes” by faculty) and for drop in sessions. Today is a drop-in session at the library. It’s been slow, but you’ve made progress on crunching through some annoyingly important but dull literature which will be useful in the next stage of your research project. It is a warm day and the library’s AC is on the blink. It’s so annoying they can’t get this right. You can feel your shirt slightly sticking to your back and your underwear feels tight and uncomfortable. As you sigh and try to focus on the journal article on your e-reader, a shadow looms over you. Oh good. Another undergraduate student who can’t differentiate or integrate. Fantastic.