Amelia Dewberry-
This week’s Gustie of the Week is Jack Meyer Garvey. Meyer Garvey is a Senior pursuing a Math and Physics double major.
On campus, he has been leading the Math, Computer Science, and Statistics (MCS) club since his first year at Gustavus. The group meets weekly to work on math puzzles designed by Meyer Garvey. They also occasionally put on campus-wide events, like Pi Day.
Meyer Garvey intertwines his majors by programming video games with unique physics systems. “One thing people might know me from is that I programmed a video game called 4 Space, which is a four-dimensional physics simulator. It’s pretty fun, you just push blocks around,” Meyer Garvey shared. Today, Oct. 13, Meyer Garvey will be giving a presentation in front of the math department. He will be describing one of the algorithms he wrote for the physics system in one of his video games.
One thing that Meyer Garvey has appreciated during his time at Gustavus is the environment of the physics department. “It’s a small department. Everybody gets to know each other really well,” Meyer Garvey said. Physics students have grown a tight community as they work together to navigate the rigorous major. In the case of hard homework assignments, “… there’s always been this group that gets together to finish the homework,” Meyer Garvey explained.
Visiting Assistant Professor in Math, Computer Science, and Statistics, Imre Tuba, has known Meyer Garvey since he was in Tuba’s discrete math class with a few friends during his first year at Gustavus. “They formed such a spirited little group and were so eager to learn that it was a true joy for me to go to that class,” Tuba recalled. This was during COVID-19 when everyone was wearing masks and distanced from each other, and some students were online. Despite this, “Jack and his group helped me make the best out of the situation,” Tuba said.
Tuba is impressed by Meyer Garvey’s involvement during his time at Gustavus. He took on running the MCS club as a first-year during COVID-19 which were difficult times for running a student organization, according to Tuba. At the MCS department’s Pizza and Problem Solving sessions, “Jack was a regular and enthusiastic attendee. He would also recruit other students to participate,” Tuba said. Tuba has taught Meyer Garvey in a few classes since that first year and knows him as “… an active and enthusiastic participant in class and a solid student.”
Meyer Garvey’s biggest piece of advice for first-year students is to go to tutoring. “The tutoring is really useful in almost every department that has maybe difficult classes,” Meyer Garvey advised. He has been a calculus tutor for the past few years. Tuba said that he has heard “many informal comments from students about how helpful and knowledgeable he is. He is such a friendly and energetic guy.”
Two things stand out the most to Professor of Physics Paul Saulnier about Meyer Garvey: “First, Jack is always curious and engaged in the classroom. He is constantly thinking, analyzing, and asking great questions. The second thing that stands out about Jack is… [the] hair!”