Who taught: Dr. Shamos and Jerome

PNC park (source: clarkservices.net)

Good Morning! My friends! I am so happy today. Do you know why? The weather is so great here in Pittsburgh. Hope you also have good weather there! So….. Summer!! It is a good time to go to baseball games. Do you like baseball? I am not that into playing it but I do like to go to the games with friends. It is very fun to watch the games and hang out. Do you know what people called the place where baseball games take place? It is called “ballpark.” In Pittsburgh, we have PNC park and it is one of the most beautiful ballparks in U.S. It is even more beautiful when there is fireworks after the game. I am not sure how many times we have fireworks at the park. But it is very crowded whenever there is fireworks. I would strongly recommend to visit any ballparks when you have a chance to visit America. You will find it is very amusing.

Yesterday, it was the first day of the orientation of the new class at the school. I was there with around 50 students, staff and other faculty members. The director of the program, Dr. Shamos, made a few presentations and one of them is a short lecture about “how to estimate?”

In U.S., if you get to have an interview with companies. It is very possible that your interviewer would ask at least one question related with estimation. When I had an interview, if I remember correctly, Jerome asked me a question, “What would be the estimated sea-level rise if the ice of the Arctic all melt down?”

There are so many different kinds of questions you would need to answer. To give you an idea, there are some examples Dr. Shamos used in his lecture yesterday.

1. How many TVs are in U.S.?

2. How many cobblers are in U.S.?

3. How many trees in the world?

Sounds very hard to estimate, right? It is quite challenging to solve these, especially when you are in an interview. But, the good news is interviewers are not looking for the right answers from you. Instead, they look into your logics to support your answers. During this kind of conversation, you would hear or need to use the word, “ballpark” again. Why? It is because ballpark has another meaning, “rough.” So, you could say, “So….. based on my assumptions, the ballpark estimate would be 100,000 TVs in U.S.”

It is quite easy to figure out why people use ballpark to mean this. You know ballpark is pretty big but it has fixed boundaries and compared to the whole city, it is quite small so that people can figure out where it is.

So, you gotta listen carefully if someone say “ballpark” in their sentences. Is it a physical ballpark or the other one, meaning “rough.”