Between Geometry and Engineering

This is the last semester. This is also the first semester in which the modules I'm taking are not decided until so late in the CORS bidding.

First of all, the modules I'm taking:

PC4274 Mathematical Methods in Physics 3
MA3215 Three-Dimensional Differential Geometry
GE3239 Environmental Sustainability

And on top of them, of course, is my FYP.

So what's taking me so long to decide upon the three? It's primary the maths module: I was torn between that module and MA3501 Mathematical Methods in Engineering. To begin with, MA3215 is probably more abstract and difficult than MA3501. Both are pretty interesting and useful to physics, but MA3215 may have the tendency to stray into stuff like, "Let X be a set and Y a subset that forms a topological structure of X..." However, MA3215 may serve (if taught at the correct level) as a bridge between general relativity and the underlying mathematics, whereas MA3501 is like those knowledge that you store somewhere in the obscure corner of your brain and may be useful in some indeterminate future. Another concern - a practical one - is that MA3215 lectures are in the afternoon, while MA3501 is at 0800.

But ultimately the issue is decided by a simple external factor. Initially, my plan was to bid and take both modules, and then drop one of them before the "withdraw" deadline. However, try as I might, I cannot get MA3501 (it doesn't even appear in CORS). Even with a successful appeal to waive the prerequisite of MA1506 (I have other equivalent modules) doesn't make it magically appear. Neither does the lecturer have any idea why this is so. But a quick check with the mathematics department office informed me that MA3501, despite its description of "modeling of basic phenomena in science, engineering and technology", is not meant for science students.

Ah well, that means I'm down to MA3215. Good? Bad? I'll have to see, but at least this is one semester, finally, that I do not have 8 a.m. lectures!