A Little Friendly Competition [From the Editor´s Desk]

Reading Madhu Gupta´s “Educator´s Corner” column in this issue reminded me how much fun graduate school was. It was a time devoted to “me,” where my job each day was to improve my knowledge and skills. Yes, the idea of graduate school ultimately was to become a more productive member of society, which those of us who go through the advanced degree process hopefully evolve into. But those few short years provided a fantastic opportunity to be self-absorbed. Problems worked in class, the subject of Madhu´s column, always seemed to open a new door, both in terms of the material but, more importantly, in terms of new approaches to problem solving. As students, we are given the chance to try new approaches and try completely new things.