Stratified spaces and degenerations

This mini-course will tie together several topics, in approximately the following order. Very little background will be assumed, essentially basic commutative algebra, though exposure to Gröbner bases would probably be a bonus. 1. Schubert varieties, matrix Schubert varieties, and pipe dreams 2. Frobenius splitting, Kazhdan-Lusztig varieties, and quiver cycles 3. Positroid varieties, Bruhat atlases, and wonderful compactifications of group