<p>Hi,
I'm a student applying to UChicago and I was wondering what the math program is like at UChicago. I lean more towards the pure math so I was wondering what the pure math track would be like. I would also like to know how accessible the professors are and if there are research opportunities available for the average math major. </p>
<p>I hope a student will respond to this, but while we’re waiting:</p>
<p>-- Chicago has one of the most respected math departments in the world, and it’s one of a handful of colleges where really talented math students come to find community and challenge. It probably has a higher percentage of math majors than any other comprehensive liberal arts institution. About 10% of all students with declared majors are math majors, and if you add in applied math and statistics it’s one out of every 8 students. Not all of the math majors are child prodigies, of course. And because of its strength in social sciences and physics, it has a really high degree of math competence among all students. I think Chicago is a great place to study math even if you are a non-genius.</p>
<p>-- Math at Chicago is almost entirely “pure” math. It does have an applied math track, and it seems to be growing, but it’s still tiny relative to the regular math major, and if you break down what the course differences are vs. the regular math major they are pretty minimal. There are lots of people, of course, whose interest in math stems from their interest in economics, or physics, or neuroscience, but the Chicago style is for all those people to learn a lot of theoretical math.</p>
<p>-- One of my kids had some close friends who were math majors, and they had no trouble at all getting involved in research – they had a really strong REU program that was sort of the envy of kids in other fields. This was a few years ago, however.</p>
<p>-- What Chicago really has for math students that only a few other universities offer is a large, diverse community of math people – faculty, emeriti, researchers, graduate students, and undergraduates, and including the president of the University. And not limited to the math department, either.</p>
<p>I concur with everything in JHS’s post. My son graduated this year with a degree in math and he took the pure math track. It is a tough but very rewarding program and as good or better than anywhere in the world. Math REU in uchicago is very well organized, thanks to Prof Peter May and his colleagues.</p>
<p>Here is a video clip you might find interesting: <a href=“The history of the University of Chicago Mathematics Department - Fefferman, Dean. - YouTube”>The history of the University of Chicago Mathematics Department - Fefferman, Dean. - YouTube;
<p>Hi existential12. I am currently a third-year math major and can share some of my experiences with you. </p>
<p>If you are interested in comparing the curriculum of UChicago’s pure math track to that of other institutions, I have linked the mathematics page of UChicago’s course catalog below, and you should be able to find analogous pages for other schools through Google. In some cases, you can find more detailed information about specific courses by searching their course names, like “MATH 20300 UChicago,” on Google. </p>
<p>I have had nine different math teachers so far, and all of them have been accessible and friendly. Two of them were below-average lecturers, but both were good people who have since moved on to other positions. Six of them are currently senior faculty members, and being able to discuss math with them during office hours is a tremendous privilege. If you do end up studying math at UChicago, I highly recommend you go to your professors’ office hours whenever they are offered. The problems and texts will still be there after you graduate, but you may never again have the chance to do math live with mathematicians of equal caliber. Most of your upper-level classes will have a graduate student teaching fellow who will grade your assignments, offer office hours, and present a few lectures. I highly recommend attending their office hours as well.</p>
<p>If you are interested in participating in research, the department offers a R(esearch).E(xperience).(for)U(ndergarduates) program every summer. Participants attend mini-courses and prepare an (usually) expository paper in consultation with a graduate student mentor. Last year, the department secured funds to offer an additional REU-type program focusing on analysis which will continue to be to be held for the next few years, and I believe that next year there will be a similar program in topology and geometry. A stipend is usually offered for all of these, and if you have concerns about summer finances, Professor May makes himself easily available to discuss these issues. Most of my friends have also been successful in applying to REU programs offered by other schools, and during the school-year you can attend lectures and seminars where researchers will talk about their work. A few of these talks are specifically aimed at undergraduates. </p>
<p>If you want to study extra math outside of your classes, you can participate in the Directed Reading Program. This is a quarterly program run by graduate students that allows you to investigate a mathematical topic of your choice under the direction of a graduate student. You are given funds to purchase texts relevant to your topic.</p>
<p>There are many people available to help you when you have issues that affect your studies but are not directly related to classwork. For example, the librarians can direct you to borrowing resources to help you get text books for the quarter if you’re not in a position to buy them.</p>
<p>In response to the posts above, I’d like to mention that there is a new major in Computational and Applied Mathematics that is being offered from this year onwards. It requires many of the courses included in applied math tracks at other universities like programming, statistics, numerical analysis, numerical linear algebra, and differential equations. I have taken many of the required courses as electives or major courses for my math degree, and I think it’s going to be one of the most difficult majors in the college. I have linked the course catalog page for this degree below. It is very manageable to get a B.S. in Mathematics and a B.S. in C.A.A.M.</p>
<p>If you have any other questions about math at UChicago, feel free to post them here. Good luck on your applications :)! </p>
<p>Math Page on Course Catalog - <a href=“Mathematics < University of Chicago Catalog”>http://collegecatalog.uchicago.edu/thecollege/mathematics/</a>
Computational and Applied Mathematics Page on Course Catalog - <a href=“Computational and Applied Mathematics < University of Chicago Catalog”>http://collegecatalog.uchicago.edu/thecollege/caam/</a></p>
<p>hmm…I’m a first year first quarter here so I can’t really say much.</p>
<p>But little things:</p>
<p>If you’re going to do math major, you will eventually do Analysis sequence 203/207 IIRC. The books can be borrowed from somewhere for a whole quarter, but I forgot what it’s called; anyways, don’t buy all the books! It’s better to actually buy Spivak Calculus though (assuming you’re not skipping 161-163); you will need it for a whole year, so you might as well buy it.</p>
<p>There’re three Math major tracks:</p>
<p>Pure Math / Applied Math / Math with Econ specialization</p>
<p>If you want to do Math + Econ major, it’s probably a smart decision to do Math with Econ specialization.</p>
<p>If you want to focus on physical sciences, a good choice will be applied math.</p>
<p>Both Applied and Econ Math require statistics.</p>
<p>The post above has been quite illuminating…I was under the impression that the professor’s office hours are only for suck-ups and people who’re failing their class currently to catch up…I guess not.</p>
<p>My older S graduated from Chicago as a math major in 2012. He chose to major in math because he already had a huge amount of CS background and likes theoretical CS, so he felt strengthening his math would help his CS. That proved to be true. He was a big fan of the IBL sequences and took that for analysis instead of Honors Analysis (he was offered a spot in that, too). Honors Abstract Alg is a tough sequence.</p>
<p>He had a job every summer and a FT position locked up by November of senior year. Never did the REUs, as he was doing CS research and/or internships in industry.</p>
<p>He was happy with UChicago, and picked it because he wanted the deep math and the emphasis on humanities. That said, the Core kicked his tail in a way that MIT’s humanities requirements would not have (no knock on MIT’s courses, just realize that Chicago’s Core is deep and challenging, and you’ll need to meet the foreign language requirements).</p>
<p>@CountingDown @Skyrior @waddlingnarwhal @UWHuskyDad @JHS
thank you for your fabulous responses and sorry for this late response. Stuff got busy and I forgot about this. Thank you guys so much!</p>