USE Biography



MICHAEL KIELSTRA, Current math major, future mathematician




Major: Mathematics

College/Employer: Harvard

Year of Graduation: 2022

Picture of Michael Kielstra

Brief Biographical Sketch:

For the first ten or so years of my life, I hated math and everything about it. My parents thought I was going to be a linguist. (I didn't have the heart to tell them I hated languages too.) Then, one day, I had a teacher who, sometimes, would let me stop doing tough problems and just play around with numbers instead. I fell in love instantly. I'm now studying math and hope to do professional math research, but, most importantly, I hope to teach other people to love it as much as I do. I don't believe in "making math fun". Doing math is like playing sports: it should be fun automatically and, if it isn't, something somewhere is very wrong.



Past Classes

  (Clicking a class title will bring you to the course's section of the corresponding course catalog)

M10: The Art of Proof: Ancient Ideals and Modern Mathematics in Splash Spring 2019 (Apr. 27, 2019)
Mathematics as taught in high school is based around solving a few select types of problems, from addition in first grade to integrals in twelfth. This seminar will take a different look at mathematics, asking why the techniques we're taught in school actually work in the first place. We'll then go beyond that to cover some of the techniques that mathematicians are using today to face up to some of the world's hardest problems. Every student will go home with their own mathematical paper of nearly-publishable quality for any academic journal!


H11: Life in the House of Mouse: Modern Copyright Law in Splash Spring 2019 (Apr. 27, 2019)
It's legal to make a meme out of a piece of modern art, but it's illegal to sell an exact copy. It's legal to dance to music in a club, but sharing a video of you dancing can earn you a million-dollar fine. Although copyright law governs modern life, it is often opaque and seemingly paradoxical. This class will cover the history and legal reasoning behind some of these paradoxes, the ways in which copyright law has changed over time, and how you can defend yourself from the dangers of the modern copyright landscape.