Good Math Schools Without Foreign Language Requirements

College Search & Selection
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<p>“1. Back in the day I majored in Computer Science. Not only did I have to take four semesters of foreign language, but I had to take two semesters of Art. I’m glad they made me take all of that… but I wasn’t at the time.”</p>

<p>As far as I can tell language is taught purely as a skill and I’m interested in ideas. Like I said, I’m open to being convinced that foreign language classes will have unifying structure/theory, but so far what I’ve found points towards memorizing many discrete bits of information. General anecdotal evidence about how sometimes people are happy they did things they didn’t want to isn’t addressing my concern.</p>

<p>“2. The fact that you are eager to skip distribution requirements and graduate in three years troubles me. Are you really looking to get an education, or are you looking for something else?”</p>

<p>I have 5’s on 6 AP tests and I’ve taken 4 college classes. By the end of the year I’ll have taken 2 more APs and finished 3 more college classes. I’m not trying to rush graduation. I’ve legitimately completed a year worth of college classes. Don’t assume that not wanting to take one type of class means I’m trying to skip everything possible.</p>

<p>“I’m a PhD mathematician. Please believe me when I say it’s not that simple once you’re doing graduate level mathematics. You really can’t just “ignore the English a lot of the time” if you really want to understand what’s going on, let alone learn how to <em>write</em> quality mathematics. And trying to read mathematics in a different language is far more complex than just learning a set of “new symbols”. Indeed—the mathematical symbols are pretty much standard across all language. The vocabulary used to write the mathematical ideas used in the proof, however, is keenly language dependent and translating mathematical (and other technical) language is not at all easy.”</p>

<p>‘Ignore the English’ was a poor choice of words. What I was attempting to convey is that I try to translate English verbal relations between objects into spacial/visual relations and think using those. Off the top of my head it seems like these relations tend to be built out of pretty basic fundamental elements. Hence my knee-jerk reaction is to assume that I’d be able to associate phrases in other languages with various mental configurations in a similarly symbolic way. And if this is the case it would be possible to combine memorized maps naturally, as opposed to having to memorize many independent maps as in a language class. Admittedly I have no experience with other languages in a mathematical context so this all could very easily be wrong, but at first glance mathematical language classes seem majorly preferable to normal language classes.</p>

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<p>You do make a good point here, but allow me to retort.
Most universities with a foreign language requirement will exempt you if you can demonstrate fluency in a non-English language. They are interested in you having this skill and either you get it on your own or they will teach it to you. </p>

<p>Clearly this is a skill they feel you should have before granting you a degree, as is their prerogative because they believe that their job is not to turn you into a mathematician, but a well-rounded, educated person.</p>

<p>However, this seems to be somewhat at odds with what you are seeking… so I have a suggestion: how about a British university? I have a colleague of mine with a degree in Mathematics from Oxford. He spent three years there and studied nothing but Mathematics (I did point out to him that in my American university I studied Shakespeare while he was practically in Shakespeare’s hometown and never studied him at all, but that’s another discussion). Another added benefit is that if you go to Oxford or Cambridge you will be awarded a MS degree a year after you graduate, effectively for free.</p>

<p>Think about it, this might really be what you are seeking.</p>

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<p>I actually didn’t know that about UK universities. I guess I might have found out a year too late. When I poked around a couple sites, it seemed like UK universities typically don’t accept transfer students.</p>

<p>Assuming I could afford it, I honestly wouldn’t mind totally starting over. But I don’t know whether UK universities would consider an application from someone already in college. Does anyone else know?</p>