<p>I am a Miami-Dade College student transferring at the end of this upcoming spring semester.
I want to become a full-time high school math teacher or math professor (but I'm leaning more toward high school.)</p>
<p>What women's college has a strong math department?</p>
<p>Also, does ANYONE know if Barnard may have a strong math department, or if the fact it's affiliated with Columbia may help me have access to Columbia's department?</p>
<p>Anyway, I just want to make sure I gain the skills and have research opportunities. </p>
<p>If you also have any liberal arts colleges in mind, please say so as well.</p>
<p>Take a look at Bryn Mawr. It’s math department received the 2012 AMS (American Mathematical Society) award for its exemplary program. (You can read the citation on the Bryn Mawr website). The only other small college to receive this award is Harvey Mudd which is in many ways the LAC version of Cal Tech. Math is a very popular major at Bryn Mawr (nearly 10 percent of the class). Bryn Mawr would also provide one with access to Haverford and Penn for a wider selection of courses. </p>
<p>Smith, Mount Holyoke and Agnes Scott would also be good choices for someone interested in math at a Women’s college.</p>
<p>I’m a grad student at Columbia and I’ve worked with both Barnard and Columbia undergraduates in different capacities. Barnard students have access to the full complement of courses in the Columbia math department, and I’m relatively certain that any of them will count towards your mathematics major requirements. Take a look at the course listing (<a href=“http://math.barnard.edu/catalogue/department/mathematics/courses”>http://math.barnard.edu/catalogue/department/mathematics/courses</a>); the vast majority of those basic classes/sections are actually joint Columbia/Barnard sections. The upper-level courses are actually taught by Columbia professors (and occasionally Barnard professors; there simply aren’t that many, so most are taught by Columbia professors). The Mathematics building is on Columbia’s campus. There are also two Math Help Rooms; the calc one is on Barnard’s campus and the advanced one is on Columbia’s campus, IIRC. You’ll probably take most to all of your math major courses in co-ed classes with both Barnard and Columbia math majors.</p>
<p>If you want to do math research, you can do it with any professor in either the Barnard or Columbia math departments. No professor will care that you are a Barnard student; that’s part of the perk of affiliation. Barnard has several joint mathematical associations with Columbia, as well as a women in math society. The upside is that Barnard houses the education program leading to certification as a teacher, so you can definitely get certified to be a math teacher at a great women’s college while majoring in math in a world-class department. We even have a library dedicated ENTIRELY to mathematics. It’s awesome!</p>
<p>I also agree with the suggestions of Smith, Mount Holyoke and Agnes Scott. Smith and Mount Holyoke are in a consortium with Amherst and UMass Amherst, so you can access math classes at both and do research with UMass professors in addition to Smith or MHC professors. And ASC is a great school for women in math and science, but you can also cross-register at Emory, which is a 10 minute drive away (there is also a shuttle).</p>
<p>You may also want to consider:</p>
<p>-Bryn Mawr College, a women’s college in suburban Philadelphia. Bryn Mawr is an excellent place for a woman to do math; they actually have a pretty robust math department and they offer both a BA and a PhD in math - so you would have access to graduate classes and professors who do research. At Bryn Mawr you can also do a joint BA/MA program and get your master’s in math AND your teacher certification in four years. The college is in a consortium with Swarthmore and Haverford Colleges as well as UPenn, so you have access to the math classes at all of those excellent schools. </p>
<p>-Wellesley - at which you could take cross-registered classes at MIT and/or Harvard; Wellesley actually has a shuttle to the MIT campus and to Cambridge, although both are about 25 minutes away)</p>
<p>-Scripps College - which is in a consortium called the Claremont Colleges; you’ll benefit from a connection to Harvey Mudd College, a science/math focused LAC, as well as the other two Claremont Colleges - Claremont McKenna and Pomona, both top LACs, and the Claremont Graduate University. They all share a big campus, basically.</p>