Well, at least that's how most people think diary submissions begin.  I never had a diary growing up, but I think it'd be nice to start blogging now.  I'm a third year undergrad at a small liberal arts University.  I love math, I mean really love math.  That's why I'm here right?  I consider myself a young mathematician.  But anyways, I'm just kinda wondering if people are going to check this out, look up my stuff, challenge my ideas, etc. etc.  

   So yeah, I thought I'd write about my experiences applying to graduate school and what I'm up to in terms of math.  I've already quasi-started the application process, but let me slow it down for everyone so it's readable...

   I'm sure that every professional "mathematician" has wondered about what kind of math they are interested in.  When I first started undergrad, I really fell in love with Calculus and then jumped into doing research my second year.  At that point I finished all my calculus, differential equations, probability and statistics, etc. and my advisor thought I was smart enough to do research (I'm still not sure his original assumption that I was smart was a good assumption, but I'm ok with that now).  So yeah, I did some research, gave some talks, and went to some conferences/meetings (Joint meetings, Texas Section MAA meeting).  
   So I really liked that project, but didn't get too far with it.  Or at least not as far as I wished it had, but that's how all research goes.  At least that's what I hear about mathematics research.  Research in other fields is different, sometimes you develop an experiment, run it and get actual results.  Whether there is anything significant or not is dependent on the dataset.  Maybe you won't find a coorelation between x and y, but at least you ran the numbers.  
   But math is different, math research, while interesting, can be taxing in terms of time and effort.  But that's what I want, in a way.  
   My career goal: Mathematics Professor.  
   How to attain goal?: Graduate school (Ph.D. in Math)
   Short(er)-term goals: Get into graduate school.
   How to attain short(er)-term goals?: ???

   What does it take to get into graduate school?  Well, if I knew the answer I wouldn't be asking the question.  What I do know is that I don't have stellar grades (very, very, very, very rare from our majors), I did some research, not ground-breaking (but I'm an undergrad, give me some slack), and I'm not a mathematical genius who figured out how to add all the numbers from 1 to 100 when I was 10.  

   What I'd like to see:
      a) A list of what tier each school is in particular areas of math (i.e., who's top-notch in Algebra, Topology, or even more specific, Differential Topology, Algebraic Geometry, etc.)
      b) What other students are doing to prepare themselves (the age-old question: where do I stand?)
      c) What can students do to account for weaknesses? (Do departments even CARE about general GRE scores?  Do pure math departments LOOK at the Subject Math GRE? Is it even worth it to take it if it doesn't test proving techniques, etc.)