Undergraduate / 'Singleton' - Common App: How a way out turned into an outlook [3]

I initially signed up for the mathematics conference as a way out of an awkward private session with my mathematics teacher. The rest of my classmates were all due to attend a physics lecture on the same day, leaving me potentially alone to work through binomial expansions. What I didn't realise was that in attending this conference, it would change my perspective of the world.

As my peers and I filled into the lecture hall, we were given the programme of presentations. My eyes scanned through the titles of the lectures and, ironically, I wished I had chosen the private session as at least I would have been kept engaged.

However, the first contender for our attention was David Singleton, a representative from Google whose task was to explain the importance of algorithms in the functioning behind their voice recognition software. My first reaction was to get ready to slump into the depths of my seat and let my imagination take over. However as he went on, I found myself being pulled away from my sedative mode and back into the lecture hall.

The realisation that the complicated mathematics Singleton explained was just a development from the simple flow chart exercises from our ICT lessons. This left me in awe. It made me question how algorithms were incorporated in our daily lives. For instance, in recent news, a student has been able to predict Twitter trends up to an hour and a half prior with an accuracy of 95%. This made me begin to think about trends within the fashion industry. Are they predicted through a similar algorithmic pattern or do a league of fashion extraordinaire set them through their knowledge and expertise in the field? Did that mean that if I was able to master algorithms then I would be a more successful designer?

In that mere hour of the presentation, Singleton enabled me to look at our everyday musings in a 'new' mathematical light. For instance, pattern cutting was no longer just about manipulating fabric to the contours of the body but a geometric translation from a design to a three dimensional form. It is for this integral reason that I will not be satisfied with just studying fashion or costume design without a mathematical course running along side. In fact, after the conference, the idea of not doing so terrifies me.