On Wednesday morning, I met with Professor Compagnoni ahead of CS434. I had logged on to WebCT and found that my role for the class was designer, which gave me complete control of the WebCT webpages for the class as well as student grades.
``Have you decided when you will keep office hours?'' she asked.
``Yes, and I posted it on my webpage. I will keep office hours on Wednesdays from one to three. Do the students just come to the lab?''
``There is a special TA room that you have to sit in during office hours. The students will find you there.'' I had hoped that I would be able to have office hours at my desk in the lab.
``Where is that?''
``It is in the computer science lab in Burchard. Go in there and you will see it. It has a glass door.''
``Okay.''
``Students don't tend to participate in class unless we give them an incentive. I give extra credit points for participation. Sometimes I will ask a student to solve a problem on the board for extra credit. There is also extra credit on the exams.'' She then detailed the grading policies which I was to follow. Most of it was on the syllabus. Quizzes and assignments would be forty percent of the grade, midterm exams would be twenty percent of the grade, the final exam would be forty percent of the grade and extra credit would be twenty percent of the grade. There were escalating penalties for late homework submission. Any homework submitted more than forty-eight hours late would not be considered.
In class Professor Compagnoni went over some material that the students should know from discrete math. I knew the material, but I took detailed notes anyway. I felt that I could refer to the notes when helping students. She had told me that it was necessary to review these concepts because otherwise the students would show a poor understanding of them on the exams. After class a pretty coed named Margarita approached me. I recognized her as a student from CS510. ``Could you help me understand some of the stuff she said in class today?''
``Sure. Come with me.'' I led her downstairs and onto the street.
As we approached the Lieb building, she lit a cigarette. I bit my tongue and turned to enter the building. She said, ``Oh, sorry'' and threw the cigarette in the snow. I took her upstairs and used my proximity key to let us into the second floor. Once in the lab, I sat at my desk and helped her with the material that she wanted clarified.
``Thank you for helping me,'' she said.
``It's no problem. I am keeping office hours in a few minutes.''
``It is difficult for me to go to your office hours because I have to work.''
``Where do you work?''
``I work at a brokerage. That is why I try to take classes at night.''
``You can always come to office hours or you can talk to me after class.''
``Okay, thanks.'' After she left I went to the computer science lab in the Burchard building and entered the TA room to wait for students to come for help.
The TA room had four or five computers on the computer science network and I logged into one. I was also still logged in at the lab and I quickly discovered that one can not use Firefox on two computers on the network at the same time. No students came. I discovered that all of my web pages had been deleted. I emailed the system administrator and he said that I shouldn't leave my computer unlocked when I am not there. I spent part of the two hours that I had to sit in the TA room laboriously handcoding new web pages in HTML. I sent my mother an email about the outrage and she sent me back a note which said, ``Ironic, in the Laboratory for Secure Systems.'' I also got an email from the post office saying that I had a package. It went on to say that the package can't be delivered to 1036 Park Avenue and that I must get a post office box in the Howe Center. I posted the weekly quiz to WebCT and set the time that it was to be available.
After office hours, I went back to the orphanage to lie down until it was time for CS503 Discrete Math for Cryptography. CS503 would be held in the Howe Center. Classes were not usually held in that building, but the professor was the dean of graduate studies and had his office there. I set my alarm and lay down for an hour and a half, but didn't sleep. I would find that I would rarely be able to get to sleep in the afternoon, knowing that I would have to get up again in two hours or less. It was still much needed rest, although it was not clear that it was worth walking two miles to get. I had had to bring my heavy backpack because the lab was half a mile from the Howe Center and I didn't want to go all the way back to the lab before class to get my backpack.
Around five thirty, I climbed the hill to the Howe Center and had a steak burrito from Cafe on the Hudson on the ground floor. I paid for the burrito with my Ducks Bills. I would have no money until the January 31 payroll. A lot of off-campus businesses accepted Ducks Bills, however, including Kings supermarket. The Stevens book store also accepted Ducks Bills and I used them to buy a heavy black hooded sweatshirt with the word ``Stevens'' emblazoned on the chest to wear under my coat. After I ate I took the elevator up to the seminar room where CS503 was to be held.
There was no textbook for CS503. Instead Dean Suffel passed out xeroxed, handwritten notes. In class he dived straight into number theory, giving definitions and proving theorems. I had taken number theory in college, but that had been fourteen years earlier. I took careful notes of everything that he wrote on the board. I wasn't registered for this class, but it was a prereq for a cryptography class that I planned to take the next semester. I had already gotten a waiver from Professor Wetzel for the prereq, but I wanted to make sure that I wasn't missing anything.
After class I was exhausted and I trudged back home in the dark. These days were grueling and I was getting more physical and mental exercise than I was used to. I figured, however, that anything which didn't kill me would make me stronger. When I got home I started writing my personal statement for my Stanley Fellowship application. The Stanley Fellowship provides full support to graduate students for one year and my adviser had told me to apply for it. If I got it, it would take effect the following fall. I sent the personal statement to my adviser.
The next morning I got up and made some coffee in my little four cup coffee maker. I drank the coffee with milk that I kept in my refrigerator. I haven't taken sugar in my coffee since I went on a camping trip as a teenager where my aunt forgot to bring the sugar. After drinking my coffee, I stumbled to CS765A, which was held in the Morton-Pierce-Kidde complex near the Lieb building. When I got there, the door to the classroom was locked and a group of students stood around waiting for Professor Wright to open it with her proximity key. Most of the students in the class were undergraduates as it was crosslisted with the undergrad special topics class and many grad students were not available for classes during the day. I was in the class because Professor Wright, who was my adviser, had specifically advised me to register for it.
After class I had my first weekly meeting with my adviser.
``Here is your Stanley Fellowship statement.'' She handed me a piece of paper which was almost completely covered with her comments in blue pen.
``Thank you.''
``I want you to give a Laboratory for Secure Systems talk about your masters thesis. Contact Yang to schedule it.''
``I would like to see someone else give an LSS talk first so that I know what the format is.''
``That is fine.''
``I want you to study digital credentials. Some researchers have been building digital credential schemes using your Eurocrypt paper on one-way accumulators. I think that is a good place for you to start.''
``Okay.'' I made a mark in my notebook.
``You probably can't pass the algorithms qual this semester because you didn't take CS601, but I want you to try them. I will teach CS601 next semester.''
``What is CS601?'' I had at least looked at all the texts suggested for the algorithms qual.
``Algorithmic complexity. It is about NP-completeness.'' She said.
``I may have a shot at that. I used that in my masters thesis. I will also study it before the quals.''
After my meeting with Professor Wright, I revised my Stanley Fellowship personal statement based on her suggestions. I would learn that Professor Wright makes extensive comments on documents and expects revisions. This was useful to me, because it helped me learn to write for publication.
On my computer at home, I had all the papers for the Crypto, Eurocrypt, and Asiacrypt conferences through 1997. When I got home, I started searching through them for papers on credential systems. I found a few papers, but most of the work on credential systems had been done subsequent to 1997. I read some of the papers and saved others to read later. I logged on to the Bannerweb student information system at SUNY IT and checked my transcripts. I saw that my masters degree had been posted. I had submitted a transcript request form with the ``hold for degree'' box checked, so the masters degree would show up on my Stevens account in a week or two.
I then graded the CS434 quiz. This took a couple of hours and the average grade was eighty. This could mean that all the students were brilliant, but I am also an easy grader. There were a few horrible scores, so the median was actually quite a bit higher. The whole class would be graded on a curve, so I felt that the important thing in grading was to be consistent. I had solved the quiz before grading it. I typed the solutions using the LATEX mathematical typesetting system and posted the solutions to the website I had made for the class off of my web page.
With these chores out of the way, I lay down to rest for my final class for the week, CS520 Operating Systems. I was not terribly familiar with operating systems, so I wanted to study it extensively for the operating systems qualifier. Once again I lay down for an hour or two, but did not sleep. I had left my backpack in the lab to avoid having to carry it home and then carry it back, but I still was sore from all the walking. Soon my alarm clock went off to let me know that it was time to eat dinner and go to class.
The operating systems professor was a soft spoken adjunct with a heavy Russian accent. This first class I sat in the back, and I could only hear about every other word that the professor said. I couldn't take notes because it was too dark in the room. He taught with slides, which meant that he moved through the material too fast, but at least the slides were available on his web page. He had assigned us to use an older edition of the textbook in an effort to save us money and to avoid having to revise his slides. I had been unable to obtain the older edition and had the new edition. The textbook was also not the same book as the prescribed reading for the operating systems qualifier. He announced his homework policy which was that we should be spending twenty hours a week on the homework. The homework would consist of programming assignments.
Margarita was in the operating systems class. She had had the good sense to take a seat near the front. During the ten minute mid-class break, she chatted with me. I wasn't sure how much I was supposed to socialize with my students, but reasoned that a casual social relationship must be within the rules. They had TA training every fall, but I had started in the spring and didn't get the training. There was no TA handbook, and I had only my common sense to guide me in such things. I had learned from the department webpages that a number of graduate classes including CS510 and CS520 may be taken by undergrads instead of the corresponding undergrad classes. Taking these classes also would satisfy these core requirements if the undergrads go on to get a masters degree, but would not provide any credits toward the masters degree.
After class, I took the scenic route home and stopped at the Howe Center. I got some chicken strips from Colonel Johns. I ate them with some reluctance as I was afraid that they would give me salmonella. When I got home, I was exhausted and fell into bed.
First thing Friday morning I did my laundry. I washed one load of colors and one load of whites. The washing machine required three quarters per load and the dryer required two quarters. That semester I made it a habit to do laundry every Friday morning so that I would always have clean dress shirts to wear to school. I didn't have anything scheduled on Friday and the washer and dryer would be in heavy use during the weekend. As I finished up my laundry, a teenage Indonesian girl came up with a load of laundry. I was surprised as this was a men's building, but I learned that she was Tom's youngest daughter. Tom's room was a one bedroom apartment on the first floor.
On Friday I read research papers about credentials and worked on my homeworks. I did the reading for operating systems, about eighty pages, and decided to read from the textbook recommended for the operating systems qualifier as well. I read a hundred pages from that book and later in the semester I would make it a tradition to read from both books every Sunday afternoon. Each book had several semesters worth of material, so I only read the assigned reading in the CS520 book, but resolved to read all the chapters of the other book that were prescribed for the qualifier. I felt that this was my only hope of passing the operating systems qual.
On Friday night, we had a building meeting at nine o'clock. There was free pizza and Thai food at the meeting laid out on the ping pong table in the living room. I love both pizza and Thai food, so I did extensive damage to the buffet. After we had eaten, Tom went through building rules and issues in tortured English. It was clear that he had been in the building for a while and experienced all manner of antisocial behavior from the residents. He also mentioned that his wife and youngest daughter lived with him in the building. His son, a Stevens student, also lived in the building and his older daughter lived in an apartment but visited frequently. Then he had us go around the room. We were to each stand up, give our name, degree, major, and any other information we would like to share. As each one of us stood up, he took a picture.
On Saturday, I looked for papers on digital credentials. While I was searching, I decided to ``ego surf'', which meant Googling your name to see what shadow you leave on the Internet. There were a lot of references to a paper on one-way accumulators that I had published with Josh Benaloh at Eurocrypt in 1993, but I also discovered something mildly disturbing. Some people, mostly gamers, where using my name as a ``handle'' or alias on the Internet. I wondered what sort of awkward situations this might cause me.