<p>Hi,</p>
<p>So I posted a question under the general forum describing myself, listing out many colleges, and asking which one/ones were the best fit. After doing that, I realized that it's probably not the best way to get the specific feedback I want about each of the colleges on my list. Therefore, I'm posting under each individual college that I'm looking at and am asking for people affiliated with that college to assess my fit for that particular college.</p>
<p>Firstly, here is some information about myself:</p>
<p>I'm a current Junior who has begun the college search and would like some advice with regards to each college's fit for me. I'm a student who is looking for a top college which excels at math or science. I'm looking at colleges within both the US and England (which is where I'm from originally) and want small to medium sized college (preferably under 20,000 students). Also, the area I want to specialize most in is theoretical math (the sub-area I think I might want to specialize in is real/complex analysis). Therefore, I want a university with great theoretical mathematics options and a theoretical emphasis. Preferably I'd like to have some good humanities offerings (possibly getting a minor in philosophy), but I want my main focus to be in the math and science areas (maybe spending around 2/3 of my time in math & science and 1/3 in everything else). My eventual goal is to go to graduate school, get a PhD in mathematics and become a math professor. Therefore, I'd like a college which gives lots of research opportunities to undergrads and has a great math grad. program, so that I can begin research and graduate level courses as an undergrad.</p>
<p>I haven't visited Carnegie Mellon but from researching it, it seems like it may be a good fit for me. I wanted to describe some things that I really like about it and some of my concerns. </p>
<p>Likes: </p>
<p>I know that Carnegie Mellon also has a good reputation for math, and I like how I could really go very deeply into my chosen area of math due to Carnegie Mellon not having core classes. I'm especially interested in the 21355-21356 sequence as they look like great, deep analysis classes. I also investigated and found at that Carnegie Mellon has a program where one can get a Masters degree in 4 years which is something which I'm extremely interested in. </p>
<p>Concern:</p>
<p>My concern is that Carnegie Mellon is more oriented towards Engineering/Computer Science than theoretical math, so I'm slightly worried about finding others with a similar interest/investment in the area of math I really want to pursue. While I could see myself liking Computer Science, I'm not oriented towards engineering/building things and would much rather pursue theory/proofs. </p>
<p>Therefore, based on the information I've given, I was wondering if people could respond to my concern and assess whether Carnegie Melon might be a good fit for me in terms of whether it's worth applying to. I'm also extremely happy to provide more information if it would be helpful in making an assessment. </p>
<p>Thank you so much in advance!</p>
The purely academic component of Computer Science here is very heavily focused on math and theory, much less on building things. (Having said that, for those who are more on the building side [such as myself], there are tons of opportunities here, though more outside the classroom than in.) I have a lot of friends who are math majors here looking to pursue/applying to PhD programs — from what I gather, their education here has been superb. Perhaps someone who’s a current student interested in pursuing higher degrees in math can comment with more specifics. </p>