The two main benefits of the CSUMS program are getting actual undergraduate research experience, 
and getting experience presenting results in front of a group of people.  The second is almost 
the more crucial; it’s a skill that is rarely emphasized at the undergraduate level.  Both were 
emphasized during our trip to Hong Kong, making the trip an extremely useful learning experience.

     Thanks to multiple visits to different universities, we had the opportunity to present our results 
three times each, as well as discuss the results in an informal setting.  My first presentation was 
still a little rough, but by the final time I presented I felt like I had nailed it.  I had a 
prepared slideshow to give, but I couldn’t use it for all but one of the presentations. This was 
actually a good thing, despite my immediate misgivings.  Presenting completely from memory is 
difficult; making that unprepared presentation understandable is harder.   But these are skills 
I’m going to eventually need, so cultivating them was very helpful.  After that, my final 
presentation with my slideshow was a piece of cake.  Those presentations ended up capping off the 
program presentation wise.  Between my work at presenting earlier in the summer and then presenting 
to different groups in Hong Kong, I believe that my presenting abilities have increased far beyond 
what little I started with.

      In terms of research experience, the trip really let us see collaboration at work.  Seeing 
actual collaboration really makes being a mathematician seem, well, fun.  It also gave us a good 
taste of what we might like to do in the future research wise;  ie, whether we would want to work 
alone or with others.  Its also helpful seeing things from other professors’ perspectives, and 
getting a feel for how other people think when they are doing mathematical research.  Getting a 
taste for what other people were working on around the world was similarly helpful.   In this way 
the trip was really good at broadening our mathematical horizon.

      But this still begs the question: why Hong Kong?  We could have given a lot of presentations 
at an American university and worked collaboratively with American professors, so why did we go 
to Hong Kong?  The answer, I believe, is this:  as an undergraduate, the international appeal of 
mathematics can be somewhat lost.  While you see foreign mathematicians inventing theorems and 
foreign authors to textbooks, I think the general impression one gets is that you are staying in 
America and working with Americans to do math.  But one of the greatest strengths of math is that 
it’s a universal language – very few other fields can say that.  So a trip to Hong Kong or another 
foreign country is extremely helpful because it makes you realize how being a math major gives you, 
literally, a world of (mathematical) opportunities .   That I think was actually the greatest (and 
most educational) part of the trip.

      And it also makes being a mathematician seem just that much more fun.