My son is a rising senior and is very interested in Brown. We don’t know any current students at Brown. Are the math faculty friendly and available to undergrads? Are there opportunities for undergrads to do research in math? Is it common for undergrads to take grad level math courses? Is there an okay “social scene” for math nerds who enjoy board games? Thanks!
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Hi! I’m not a math concentrator, but I am in STEM, have taken a difficult pure math class, and have lots of friends doing mathy things. Something unique about Brown is that we have separate departments for pure math and applied math, and he could concentrate in pure math, applied math (APMA), apma-biology, apma-comp sci, apma-economics, computational biology, math-comp sci, or math-econ.
The applied math faculty are more widely liked than pure math in general, but pure math upper-divsion courses are well-regarded as well–the intro calculus sequence is tough, but can be skipped with AP credit. There are multiple options at most levels of math. I can’t speak to graduate-level math classes. Back when I was thinking about doing apma in my first semester, I took a class with all freshmen that was literally the hardest class I have ever taken–math at Brown is rigorous. Math research is definitely common, even as a freshman, and the professors are all super smart but nice.
In terms of social scene, there’s something for everyone. Tech House in particular is a program house for mostly stem people, and they’re super nice.
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Thank you. That is helpful. He is interested in pure math. How does Tech House work? Can freshman do that?
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Tech House recruitment is kind of like a frat process actually, just with gamer events instead of frat parties. I believe freshmen and sophomores can join, and they have recruiting events for a few weeks. They have a house on campus.
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My son is a rising senior who has an applied math and Econ concentration at Brown.
The flexible curriculum has allowed him to offset his math geek side with a bunch of “debate” type humanities courses and a heavy focus on entrepreneurship. He finds the math classes to be extremely challenging but credits the faculty with being extremely supportive and accessible. He also has described how much he has learned from his peers and how collaborative everyone is. This flexibility in class selection and lack of a cut throat atmosphere is what drew him to Brown.
He also plays a fairly physical sport for Brown and during the school selection process noted that almost every kid he met at Brown would be hard to describe besides using terms like eclectic, smart and engaged. That uniqueness of interests and acceptance across “non traditional” groups is what he seems to have enjoyed most. I specifically was struck by his description of an aspiring neuroscience Pre med team mate who could bench press 315 and collected Pokémon cards.
From a practical standpoint Brown affords ample career opportunities for math kids across a broad spectrum including IB, consulting, start ups, academia etc.
Perhaps not an answer to the question you asked but I hope it helps.
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