<p>Would you like to share you experience being (past or present) a math major?</p>
<p>Hey, I’ve seen you lurking and posting at PF, I think. : )</p>
<p>Note that my point of view is from a Pure Math guy, kinda. </p>
<p>I’ve finished my first year as a math major at the University of Minnesota - Twin Cities. As far as math majors of the kinds you encounter at PF, I started kinda late. Then again, I wasn’t planning on being a math major until after I gave Spivak a try and decided “Hey, y’know, this is actually really really interesting, I can really see myself majoring this” as opposed to some sort of engineering. </p>
<p>As far as actual proof classes, I only took 3: one a year-long class on Multivariable and Linear Algebra, one in an intro-to-proofs class, and one in ODEs (which wasn’t really proofy at all, just more sophisticated math since it was a higher level class). Intro-to-proofs = Waste of time. If you have the sophistication to read Spivak, I doubt you’ll need intro-to-proofs, unless they do it with a topic that you like or you don’t know. Here, they teach proofs with sequences and series though I heard at one point they taught it with Combinatorics which would have been sorta interesting since I know almost nothing about Combinatorics, not even the trivial in “how many ways can you arrange 9 people in a circular table with 10 spots?” Embarrassing, I know. : )</p>
<p>If you are ever in need to talk to someone about math (whether it be because you need or because you think math is cool and you want to talk about it), don’t hesitate to befriend TAs! For example, the year-long proof class I took required one to be in the honors program as well as have departmental permission. I had neither. In fact, my first semester was basically only 3 classes (there’s a story as to why it was so little), one being an english class, the other Multivariable class for Engineers, and the intro-to-proofs class. It was terrible for me. I was just horribly bored. That multivariable class was just not aimed at math majors looking for rigorous knowledge. Likewise for the intro-to-proofs class (even though it was the bane of a lot of applied math majors (like the actuarial ones)). In a sign of desperation, I talked with my TA for Intro-to-Proofs, and literally told him “Hey, is there any way I can talk to you about, y’know, math?” He suggested office hours, then I told him it was not related to the class. He kinda caught my drift and suggested I met him at the Grad Lounge and we could talk there at a certain time. So I did, and we hung out, spent like 3 hours talking about. I told him my situation, how I felt suffocated by the lack of proofy-math classes, and he knew the solution. As it turns out, he went to the U of M as an undergraduate and was in honors, so he was really good friends with the head of honors. So through him, I got both exempted from the honors requirement and the departmental permission. We still talk from time to time. I tend to bribe him with free meals though, yay guest passes that I never use : ).</p>
<p>In all of your non-straight-pure-math classes (I’m talking Topology, Algebra, and Analysis), you’ll always find different groups of people. You’ll find the typical “Ugh-I-hate-proofs” gang, the “omg-proofs-are-cool” gang, as well as other groups like “I-am-only-taking-this-class-because-it-was-a-hole-in-my-resume” (I saw this in ODEs) or the “I-hate-requirements”. Needless to say, they can all offer insight on different things, depending on your interests. </p>
<p>As for random things, I’ll get asked the question, “What are you going to do with that?” or more than likely people (upon learning I’m doing a math major) will immediately assumed “Oh,you want to be a teacher?” Some people find it insulting (mostly because math portion of ‘math education’ is usually very-watered down or not very demanding), some don’t really care, some are like “Yup!”</p>
<p>There’s also countless stories about epic math fails involving other majors (notably finance). </p>
<p>I could go on, making paragraph after paragraph, but then again, I’m really verbose. The question is too broad.</p>
<p>Yes, the guy “lurking and posting at PF” would be me :)</p>
<p>Thanks for the advice! I know the question is kind of broad, but I just want a feel of how it is to be a math undergrad. You’re planning on going to grad school, right?</p>
<p>By the way, did you use Spivak as a class textbook, or were you just reading it on your own?</p>
<p>Yes. Definitely grad-school bound. Without a doubt. I said kinda as far as pure math goes because the fear that has been instilled by Katz([Don’t</a> Become a Scientist!](<a href=“http://wuphys.wustl.edu/~katz/scientist.html]Don’t”>http://wuphys.wustl.edu/~katz/scientist.html)) and Twofish-Quant’s posts about academia is strong within me, not to mention I’m still unsure on actually being a prof. It’s best to decide whether you plan to go on to grad school or not since there are a lot of classes you should take for a good grad school background, thus limiting you from taking classes that are more geared towards a getting a job out of graduation. I’m assuming you too are grad-school bound even though you are not even college yet. : )</p>
<p>I read it on my own. I never actually finished it, which is a pity since most of the cool stuff was towards the back, but I did read it enough to be wow’d by it. It was definitely a brain-rectification I needed after high school math. The problems were for the most part really really really hard. The book itself was really hard. Especially for a guy with no proof background or professor to guide him. Nonetheless, it served it’s main purpose by inspiring me and showing me what real math is. There’s nothing really else you can hope to attain from it. The book is placed in a very odd spot. It’s harder than almost all Calc books (barring Apostol, of course), making it unpleasant to use for most teachers, yet it’s not suited for Analysis classes since it lacks Topology as well as added difficulty. Ideally, I think it should be the book used for an Intro-to-Proofs class. Proof-based Calc 1/2 maybe.</p>
<p>Cheers to the best major in the world. At least 3 times in my working career since college, I have been “thrown into” some technical/engineering job because I was told “hell, if you can major in math…you can certainly do this.”</p>
<p>In college, I was one of those hybrid “math/computer science” types. I stood out because when I was undergrad at Michigan State, computer science majors did like like math and just wanted to get it over with and the same thing could be said for a most math majors who were required to take a couple of computer science courses.</p>
<p>Well I was that guy with an “Advanced Calculus & Real Analysis” book in one hand and a “Theory of Programming Languages” book in the other hand. Yes, it was kind of cool because for my Numerical Analysis course, I would write programs in C/C++ which would be a little too advanced for my Math professor (although he said we could use C/C++). He pretty much could only check if I computed correctly and not REALLY check it like some FORTRAN program. Of course in my CS courses, if we were allowed to choose a topic to write a program for…you guessed it, I would choose something mathematical in which my CS professor was not too keen in.</p>
<p>Thank you for that wonderful insight Globaltraveler.</p>
<p>I’m still undecided if I want to do pure or applied math…god it’s hard to decide. I’ve been exposed to both sides and am interested in both, at least right now. I guess I have some time before I HAVE to pick.</p>
<p>It depends what you want to do in your future (between pure math and applied).</p>
<p>As somebody that is a Statistics major (similar to applied math), I like real world applications of mathematics. I took the proofs class, discrete, number theory, etc. It’s great for a foundation, but I love to take that foundation and apply it to real world analysis.</p>
<p>As my most recent college math professor said, very little work is done in the “pure math” field, most of it is applied. If your desire is to find new breakthroughs in mathematics then the pure tract is the way to go (PhD/Academia). If you want to use your math skills for business, science, analysis, etc. then applied is probably a better way to go. That’s not so say the pure guys would have any trouble switching over to applied.</p>