ECMI Modelling Week 2017 – A Student’s Perspective

Video song credit: 1. Haring: Us, 2. The Beach: Thieves 3. Thomston: Collarbones 4. Conor Wash: The Front

For 5 days in Lappeenranta (Finland), I got into a routine that looked more or less like this:

• 🏃 Morning run + breakfast 7-8
• 👨‍💻 Work 9-18
• 🏊 Evening swim 18-19
• ⭐️ Social activities 19-23
• 😴 Sleep 23-7

There was also a lunch break 12-13 and two coffee breaks. Some of the days we went to a sauna next to the university, where we would alternate between sauna and lake swimming, when not eating, drinking, singing and talking. The days are quite long in the summer at Finnish latitudes, so evening swims were still in full sunlight ☀️

I was assigned to team Lambda, working on optimizing route planning for snow plowers for a town in Finland ❄️ 🗺 This problem involved obtaining map data, formatting data, modeling the problem, trying different solutions (starting with a simple one and then gradually adding complexity), and visualization of the solution.

It was glorious to have everything practical taken care of, and just be able to work, socialize or exercise during the time we were there. Everyone was really friendly, the problem we worked on was interesting, and it was a very good and memorable experience overall. I highly recommend this to any eligible mathematics student 😃